


A Harder Way

by Wildonce



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, female bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:42:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildonce/pseuds/Wildonce
Summary: Mr Barnes has one daughter and three sons, Rebecca Buchanan Barnes the oldest and wildest by far. He called her his little bucking ‘Becca, his wild daughter born ahead of her time. His Bucky.Steve’s Bucky.





	1. Chapter One

He’s ten the first time he meets Bucky, though he won’t call her that until he’s just turned eleven and he hears Mr Barnes say it first. The first time he does she gets angry, spitting mad with hands balled up at her sides as she glares hot at him. He calls her Bucky and she doesn’t call him Stevie but hard flat Steven as she demands he ‘don’t call me that.’ 

 

Then he didn’t know what it meant and he doesn’t learn for another year, not until Mr Barnes is cold in the ground and  _ Becca  _ tells him to please please please call her Bucky,  _ please Stevie I gotta be someone's Bucky, I just gotta _ .

 

Mr Barnes had one daughter and three sons, Rebecca Buchanan Barnes the oldest of the lot and the wildest by far. He’d called her his little bucking ‘Becca, his wild daughter born ahead of her time. His Bucky. So by the time he’s twelve and she is just past eleven Rebecca Barnes is his Bucky and she won’t be anything else until the moment he goes into the ice. No one else calls her it, just him and even when he has nothing else to claim as his own he has that. They are so entwined with each other their mothers joke you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. She’s everything to him and he tries, always always tries, to be the best he can be for her.

 

Of all the things he wants to know when he wakes in the future, what happened to Bucky isn’t one of them. There is more than one fantasy spinning in his mind, some of them he’s too ashamed to speak aloud to anyone, but none of them can actually hurt him. Steve knows, feels it deep like he doesn’t feel many things anymore, that knowing how and when Bucky had died would kill something in him. Right now, in this twilight of knowing and still not, it’s sleeping, twisted up deep inside him but still there.It went there when he went to Europe, no, before then. When he went to the Army, when he stopped being simply Steve Rogers. Ever since he was ten it was the two of them. He’d embraced that - though not always easy - and that means that there is no Steve without Bucky. Just like she needed to be someone's Bucky, he needs to be her Stevie. He needs it. So he doesn’t look and he doesn’t ask. 

 

No one asks about her either. At first he finds it odd - a relief, a mercy in a world that doesn’t often grant them. The world is fascinated by his story, by the fantasy tale they have made it into and he can’t imagine how anyone could tell you the story of his life and for Bucky to not be in it. She made him. Makes him still. No one asks and he takes that. Embraces it. Steve doesn’t talk of her. Doesn’t tell anyone, doesn't mention her name. 

 

It’s why he puts it off for so long, going to see Peggy. He does ask about her, hears all about her glorious life, her glowing career and the paths she’d made for herself, even before they battle in New York. She even writes him, a long letter than smells like the perfume he remembers her wearing and is covered in her no nonsense handwriting. She’d written it in pen, letting her mistakes and missteps stay on the page and Steve hadn’t been able to stop smiling. It had been so full of life for a single sheet of paper, so full of what he remembers of her smile and intelligence. Her wit. 

 

_ Do you remember what you asked of me that day in the city? Back before it all truly began? I’d like to talk to you about it now, if you’d let me. There’s so much I need to tell you, Steve, so much more than you can imagine. Please, I have so much I need to say to you before it’s too late. _

 

That day in the city. The day he became this thing that he is now, stopped belonging to Bucky and Bucky alone. He remembers exactly what he had asked, what he had done that day and he isn’t a man brave enough to talk about it. 

 

When he finally goes, sits quiet at her bedside while Peggy weaves a horrible history that Steve can’t help but believe -  _ Bucky, Jesus his sweet sour Bucky it’s so her it’s exactly what she would do Bucky buckypleasebucky -  _ he knows he was wrong. Wrong about everything - about becoming this thing, this symbol, about going to war, about being in a twilight, about hiding from the pain. It’s all a lie. 

 

* * *

  
  


Tony is eighteen and spending Christmas at home with his parents for what will be the last time when he hears the name Rebecca Barnes for the first time. He had been ordered home and even now, too far past eighteen to want to mention and weathered by more than Howard could ever have imagined, that raises the same salty bitterness in him. Ordered home, ordered to meet with his father, sit across from him as Howard reigned King behind the desk Tony still hasn’t had the courage to get rid of. It had just been the two of them in the office, a place that Tony rarely got to see and the name had fallen into the space between him. 

 

_ This is my responsibility. Our responsibility,  _ he’d been told.  _ An obligation. An honour. A favour to the best man I have ever known.  _

 

Young and resentful, Tony had heard that last part louder than the rest. Now, in this place, seeing the same man his father had thought so highly of, Tony can only hear  _ responsibility.  _ It sings to him, buries its way past the armour and into that gaping hole where the reactor sits.  _ Responsibility.  _ Tony likes responsibility. He likes being needed. Being the only one that can get something done. Likes being the top dog, the one holding all the cards. 

 

Nothing has ever sat so heavy before. 

 

Tony keeps waiting for him to ask. A hint. A nod. A google search slipped to him by JARVIS. Anything. After New York, after Loki is gone and the others have either stayed or spread out to wherever - not wherever, he knows and follows and waits incase they need help, these people who he’d fought with - it is they go to. After, when there is nothing for Steve to do but search and discover, orientate himself to this brave new world. Nothing. 

 

When Rogers goes to London, visits with Peggy, Tony is too occupied to think of what that might mean. The Mandarin and his own personal demons weighing him down. Even when he hears from Barton how Rogers had come back a different man, changed, darker somehow, Tony doesn’t slot the pieces together. See, Howard had made it seem like their little secret.  _ Our responsibility.  _ It hadn’t clicked that good old Aunt Peg might have been in on it, too. Might have had her own story to spin. It doesn’t click until he’s sitting staring as the organisation Peggy had helped to build is brought down right in front of the worlds eyes. Then, then the pieces click together and Tony flies into action.  _ Our responsibility.  _ Still. 

 

He sees it but he doesn’t think anyone else will - knows no one else will once JARVIS and him manage to pull it all in and erase any trace. No one else is looking for Rebecca Barnes. She doesn’t exist. Never has, Howard saw to that and Tony maintains it. The files are easy to hide, easy to take. Tony almost doesn’t open them, thinking he knows already everything that will be in there. His greedy eyes are hungry and already ready to flit off and over to the spy secrets Fury had always managed to keep hidden from him and JARVIS. It’s the name that catches on to something in his brain though, slips in and grabs onto his curiosity. It doesn’t fit and for a super secret spy organisation, Tony knows SHIELD aren’t up to much with the project names. 

 

So he opens it. Just a peak. Project Persephone. 

 

_ This is my responsibility. Our responsibility. I won’t always be here to do it, to see it done. It will fall to you, Tony. An obligation. A promise that I need you to keep for me. An honour, really. A favour to the best man I’ve ever known, looking after the memory of someone that he cared for. It’s the least I - we - can do for him.  _

 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

 

There is a moment when Tony considers saying nothing. Keeping it to himself, bearing the burden of the knowledge on his own and keeping Steve from it all. It’s a single fleeting moment but still, it haunts him. Makes him question exactly what kind of man he is, that he would even consider hiding this. It feels too close to condoning it. Covering it up. Keeping dirty secrets. When the moment passes, Tony decides to learn everything, to go in armed with all the information he can possibly find. To know everything there is to know. It takes him three days to track it all down, three days of constant searching from him and JARVIS before he finally decides he has it all. The whole fucked up story. Well, not it all. 

 

He has JARVIS plot a route and lodge a flight plan, tells him he’ll be leaving in twenty minutes and keeps to his word. A quick shower and an even quicker meal break, his movements business like, thoughtless. 

 

“Where are they now, J?” He waits until the lights of the city are far behind them before he asks. He can see the exact location on the HUD but that isn’t what he wants to know.

 

“Captain Rogers, Ms Romanoff and Mr Wilson are currently at the home of Mr Wilson. Captain Rogers left the hospital five hours ago,” JARVIS states, sassy and judgemental, “against medical advice.” 

 

Tony knows that he is meant to snort a laugh. J’s trying hard to lighten the mood but it can’t work, not with the shit storm going on in his head. Not with the story he is about to tell, the horrors he’s about to make known. 

 

“I can notify them of your arrival time, Sir.”

 

Quick and sharp, Tony shakes his head no. “Not a word,J.” This has to come from him. 

* * *

 

His mind swims, a rolling mess of anger and guilt, God so much guilt. Steve did this. It’s on him. It’s as on him as it would be if he’d been the one who stole her from the camp himself. From the moment Tony tells him Steve accepts the blame. Takes it, carries it deep in his soul, or well, what’s left of it.

 

_ I didn’t know. I’m sorry, I just, fuck, Steve. I didn’t know this. Jarvis found it and I came as soon as I could. Fuck. I’m sorry. _

 

The file between his fingers, her ID picture. Steve had a copy way back then, tucked into his compass. Well worn, well loved. His Bucky, her face glowing. Bucky’s face. Exactly like he remembers. Every freckle, every eyelash. Her smug little smirk and her eyes locked tight on the camera. She’s proud and so’s Steve. His Bucky a nurse. Saving people. He’d been nothing but proud when she finally told him. The fear hadn’t hit him until later. To see it in this file, this file that lays it all out in order, lays out her last seventy years. It’s too much. 

 

_ I’m looking but there’s nothing, Cap. There is no trail. Nothing. The file, that’s it. Nothing. Howard - he hide her. Took everything out of public record. No one was looking. No one knew to look, Cap, I’m sorry. And now, they know, they know what they’re doing. Nothings caught sight of her. Nothing. She’s a ghost. _

 

It changes him. He tries, God he tries, not to let it but how? How could it not. The guilt is so strong it’s almost suffocating him. Sam tells him it’s common. Depression. PTSD. Tries to pull him back up from under the surface of his own self hatred. Steve has no time for it. No time for anything that isn’t the mission, that isn’t finding Bucky. Hurting Hydra. Finding Bucky. 

 

_ You’ve got to live, Steve. She wouldn’t want you to be this - this shell. Come back to New York with me. We’ll stay with Tony, take some time. Digest it all. Sam can come, too. Please. Bruce is already there. I’ll call Clint in. It’ll be like after New York.  _

 

The public - the government, Tony - blame Wanda for Lagos. Blame her for the destruction. Steve knows better. He’d lost focus. Froze for the first time in his life. The threat could and should have been neutralised before Wanda even needed to get involved. It’s on him. He’d heard something that even the serum couldn’t think it’s way around. He hears in constantly, now. Always running in the back of his mind. He can’t quiet it. Can’t make it stop. 

 

_ I see her, your Little Miss. Been seeing her for years. Longer than you’ve even known she wasn’t in the ground. And you know what? I’ve seen all of her, every fucking inch.  _

 

Steve has moments that change his life. Moments where he can take action, where he can watch, where he can decide to go one way or another. That - that moment with Rumlow, that’s the moment that defines him now. Hearing that, the taunt, yes, but more the  _ been seeing her for years.  _ Years. He can’t stop thinking on it. Years. He’d been out of missions, fighting back to back with Steve and then - what? He’d go back to some base on his off days. Check in. See Bucky. Was she awake? Was she frozen? God, he isn’t strong enough for this. It breaks him.  _ Years.  _ The rest he can almost let go of. Ignore. Like his brain knows already that this is too much to handle, that this is succeeding where so many other things have failed. It’s unraveling him. 

* * *

 

It’s the kid because of course it’s the fucking kid. Tony can’t keep him out of anything, why would this be any different? “Run that by me again, Fri.”

 

It’s late on a Wednesday, well Thursday now, and Tony had been focused on the latest draft of the Accords, spinning it this way and that trying to find yet another way to soften the restrictions. He’d already known he’d be running on too little sleep - even for him - at the meeting with the Accords council tomorrow and this makes him think he’ll be running on none. Zilch. Nada. Zip.

 

“The search was run twenty minutes ago, Boss,” Friday tells him again, her voice coming out soft and sweet with that accent. “Peter ran it from home, asking Karen for help when he came up with nothing.”

 

Sighing, Tony pushes himself up from his chair and moves into the open space between his work bench and the door. “What exactly was the search?”

 

Friday’s already told him but Tony’s still clinging to the idea that this isn’t something he is going to have to deal with. That this isn’t going to lead to a whole shit storm that he is in no way equipped to deal with at the moment. So far from equipped. He’s alone - Vision and Rhodey at the Compound while he holes up in the city and takes meeting after meeting after meeting. It’s exhausting and he’s running on more than empty. Not enough time has passed since those moments in Germany, since Siberia, not enough time for Tony to manage to shove everything that’s still burning hot and angry inside him down. He doesn’t want to think about Rogers, about any of them and this is a steaming pile of history that he does not have the energy or control to deal with. But then, he doesn’t have a choice.  _ Our responsibility.  _ Project Persephone. Peter.

 

“Rebecca Barnes Queens, first. Then Rebecca Barnes. Rebecca Barnes New York. Nurse Barnes Ne-”

 

“Okay, okay.” He gets it. Rebecca Fucking Barnes. “Is he still awake?”

 

A pause in which Tony stands still, head tilted back to stare directly at the ceiling above him before Friday speaks again. He had the strongest fucking urge to make sure it wasn’t coming down on him. 

 

“Yes, Boss,” she tells him. No judgement in the tone like she usually gets when he creeps to far on the kid. Yeah, he gets it. It’s not cool but he needs to keep him safe. He’s messed up too much already. Tony isn’t the only one that worries about things falling down on top of his head these days. 

 

“In the suit?” Patrolling, he means.

 

“Karen is active but Peter is at home. He arrived home approximately ten minutes before he placed the search. Only the cowl is on. They’re just talking.”

 

Closing his eyes Tony breaths deep once, twice and then lets his head fall back to its natural position. Lets his eyes open and his feet move him back to his seat. He almost smiles thinking of the kid and the way he is with his Karen. It’s cute but cute doesn’t have any place here. “Patch me through.”

 

“On it,” Friday tells him instantly and then they both fall silent, waiting. 

 

“Mr Stark?” The voice comes through and fills the room around him, louder than Fri had been but more unsure and so fucking young. 

 

“Where did you hear the name Rebecca Barnes?’ Tony asks, voice more harsh than he meant it to be. He didn’t want harsh at all, not with the kid, but he can only manage so much, only handle so much. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Peter replies, instantly apologetic even though Tony knows he can’t possibly have any clue what he’s actually apologising for. “I’m sorry, Mr Stark, I didn’t know it was a - thing. Anything. I didn’t know she was anything.”

 

“Where, kid?” Less harsh this time, more tired. Old. Fuck.  _ Responsibility.  _ He’s got so much he’s choking on it.

 

Tony hears the thump of a cushioned impact and then the rustling of what he remembers were blue sheets before the kid lets out a sigh. “Off 198th Street maybe. Around there. I wasn’t paying attention, really, sorry. Was making sure this kid got home after I saw these kids bugging him. He was maybe like ten, Mr Stark. So, well, I just trailed him home a bit. I stopped a guy who was hitting a woman. He was a mean dude, Mr Stark,” he tells him, his words coming quick and eager now. “She seemed to know him and he’d hurt her pretty bad. Her face was all busted up and her side, she was totally holding her side and trying to act like it didn’t hurt but she was struggling to walk and seemed, like,  _ scared _ . The woman - Miss Barnes - she was there. She helped me get her to her mom’s house. She was-”

 

“Wait, wait, stop. She?”  _ She?  _ “I’m not understanding here kid. She? As in Rebecca Barnes she? As in you saw her?”

 

“Yeah, Mr Stark. She helped me get the woman to her mom’s.”

 

“You said that.” The kid had seen her.  _ Miss Barnes.  _ Had fucking stumbled on the ghost they had spent all this time chasing. “And she gave you her name?”

 

“Mmhmm,” a cough and then, “yeah, I mean yes. She seemed nice.” 

 

More rustling. Silence. 

 

Stunned silence. The kid had  _ seen  _ her. “Fri,” Tony snaps and this time he isn’t at all surprised by how harsh his voice comes out sounding. He feels raw. 

 

“Already on it, Boss.” His good girl.

 

“Mr Stark?”

 

“Thanks, kid,” Tony tells him, harsh but still honest. He hopes the kid gets that. “Don’t go out again tonight, okay? Stay in? Yes?” He makes a slashing motion to his own throat while saying the words and Friday cuts the connection before Peter can reply. Tony has learnt it’s best not to give him a chance to argue his way into a situation. Negotiation is a no go with this kid.  

 

As soon as the connection is gone screens appear 180 around him. New York streets,  so many camera feeds with super shitty resolution speeding through feeds and then one that’s crystal clear in front of his face. Tony lifts his hand, gestures at just the right point and Friday knows exactly what he wants. Exactly what he’s looking at. The feed from the kids suit pauses. The angle is off, the kid clearly still up high and hanging on one of his web lines, and his focus isn’t on what Tony wants. The kid is looking at a girl who’s holding her ribs and looking at him like he’s gonna whale on her too. Peter had said the woman he saved was scared and she looks it. Poor girl, Tony thinks with the tiny part of his brain not looking at the other figure in the paused image. Its her. No doubt. It’s fucking her, now,  _ here,  _ after all this time. It had to be now.

 

Dread and terror surge inside him so strong and heavy Tony almost chokes on them. The camera feeds are still flashing past in front of him, too quick for him to analyse but he knows what Friday is doing. Without even having to ask or direct her, he knows. His baby girl has grown in giant Hulk size bounds from what she was when he brought her online. In a matter of minutes she’ll have a location. A movement history. Shopping patterns, haunts, acquaintances. She’ll find him a way in. 

 

Tony moves his feet from the rim of the chair to the floor, both legs spread long and wide so he can stretch out and reach into the front right pocket of his jeans. No matter what he’s wearing, suits or jeans or the armour, he always keeps it on his right. Ready to reach for when needed. The moment his fingers touch the cool metal he’s back at the Compound, back in that moment, back feeling just as lost and guilty and alone as he had then. He can almost feel the crinkle of well worn paper under his skin, can hear that voice he hasn’t heard in so long right inside his skull.

 

_ Tony, _

__ _ I did let you down, I know that. There isn’t anything else to say but I’m sorry. I don’t expect your forgiveness and I won’t ask for it. It was selfish of me and I knew it. I thought I was keeping it from you to spare you the pain but really, I know I was only sparing myself.  _

__ _ I wish we agreed on the Accords, I really do. I know you were only doing what you believe in, and that’s all any of us can do, it’s all any of us should. So no matter what, I promise you -- if you need us. If you need me, I’ll be there. I know you’ll come if we need you. I know you will be watching.  _

__ _ I have to ask. I have to. I’m sorry. Please don’t stop looking. Please. I have no right to ask. I know that but please, Tony. Don’t do it for me. She’s out there, somewhere.  _

 

_ Steve _

 

It’s always charged, always on, always ready. Tony isn’t sure if he ever actually planned on using it but here he is, his left hand holding it while his thumb flicks it open. The low green hue of the screen is a shock. His electronics are blue and bright, brilliant light. This is something different and it’s just as surprising as the day he first opened it. There is still only the one contact,  _ Steve,  _ and it takes his fingers no time to get him to it. He doesn’t want to deal with this. Doesn’t want to be the one that has to go and find her, doesn’t want to be the one that is looking, but more than all of that, he doesn’t want to be doing it  _ alone.  _ Not just for him but for her. Steve is the one who should be here. He should be the one to go. Even after all that has passed between then, Tony can’t stand in the way of this. Won’t stand in the way of it. 

 

His hand is steady as he pushes the call button and raises the phone to his ear, eyes moving back to take in the paused image from the kids suit. He focuses on the perfectly clear picture of his face as the ringing starts. It’s still light and he can see every detail of her face. She looks tired. Young but tired. It’s in the eyes, Tony thinks. He imagines his look the same, though he’s got twenty years on her. Well, lived years. He wonders what her eyes have seen. War, he knows that much. Death. Hydra. Years and years of Hydra, of captivity. 

 

Tony holds on to the phone, lets it ring and ring, waiting. His hand doesn’t shake. He doesn’t hang up. He doesn’t stop. Just waits. 

 

Lets it ring out. Somehow, he is not at all surprised. 

* * *

  
  


It’s nothing at all like she remembers. It’s so green and full of life, of monuments and grand buildings that she can only guess at the meaning of. It’s a perfect place to wait him out but still, it’s hard to be here. She’d only come once before with her momma, the boys and Steve. The World's Fair had been on and they’d all saved and saved to be able to come. Becca had been sure that it was something Steve had to see. Their world had been shrinking in on them for years and she had wanted to remind him that there was always a future. That life would go on. It’s a funny sentiment to her, now, considering what the next few years would bring for them. Even in forty she’d been worried about what he would do. 

 

The globe draws her in more than the rest. It’s beautiful in its simplicity. There is probably some grand meaning behind it, some symbolism and context that are going completely over her head, but she appreciates the stark nakedness of it. Just the world. As it is. The water underneath is calm and the area is quiet. It’s so early that she’s the only person around. Some had passed her on her way here but here, now, she’s alone with her thoughts. Alone with her expectations.

 

She wouldn’t have involved the Spiderman if she’d know how young he was. The regret of that has been building in her since she spoke to him, since she heard a voice that couldn’t be anything but young. He’s out there doing what he’s doing, helping people, she had seen that, but he’s still young. And she has risked him to get what she wants. That’s not something she can feel okay about. The whole plan had been tailored to avoid risk to anyone but her and this new Stark. 

 

It had taken her months to finally make it back to New York. Months of hiding, running, pretending, and she won’t think on them now. Maybe not ever. Becca had just known she had to get back here, get back to Brooklyn. Stevie would be waiting there and if he wasn’t, he’d had left her a sign. Something.  _ Anything.  _

 

She won’t think about that, either.

 

Her mind always wants to take her to the places that hurt. 

 

No. 

 

Restless now, she starts to move. There’s a grouping of trees not too far off and she decides to make for that. She’s started at the Earth enough. The grass is damp and dewy, the air around her the same, and it’s so fresh compared to the other parts of the city. It’s almost like she remembers it being when her Pop had taken her and her brother outta the city for that one time. The only time she’d been to the country before the War. It’s a nice memory and one that Becca doesn’t have to run from. There is no one in it but her and her family. 

 

She’s nearing the trees when the sound registers with her. A soft almost whine, nothing like what she has heard before, and her eyes flick up quick. The sky is dark and clear, nothing but the moon and a bright white light that’s fast moving towards her. It wombles, the light, like it’s unsteady. Untethered. Like her. Stark, or well, Iron Man, whatever this one is calling himself this day. It’s only polite to stop and wait, so she does, watching him come steadily closer all the while. 

 


	2. Chapter Two

They wait three weeks. It isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things and none of them seem to resent the extension of their exile. It’s more downtime than any of them have had in months. It happens quickly once it has been agreed. The negotiations go on for over a year and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, it’s settled and they are allowed to return. Are in fact actively encouraged to return. Steve doesn’t trust it, knows that Natasha doesn’t fully either. In the end, after all that had happened, it can’t truly be that easy. No, that’s not right. It hasn't been easy. Not on any of them. Not even close. Years of running, of hiding, of days and nights where they didn’t even know who they were running and hiding from. Fighting without backup, knowing that it was just them, no one else would come. There was no second line, no support, no fall back position. They were it.

No, not easy.

Steve knows they aren’t the only side to have suffered. T’Challa, when they’ve seen him, can’t quite hide the strain of the talks, of the Accords Council, of trying to shape it all into something that will work. The way he had slipped them intel, news from back home, things that Steve is sure he can’t have come by all on his own no matter the power of Wakanda. He can’t bare to think about the rest now, when he’s so close to having to confront it all finally after all this time. He’s been walking a tightrope of denial and suppression for so long he isn’t sure how to be any other way.

The steady hum of the Quinjet is as familiar now to him as his own heartbeat. It has been their only true home for a long time. Hotels, hostels, safehouses, truck back seats. He’s slept in them all but the only time he has ever been able to really _rest,_ it’s been here.

“Five minutes out,” Clint calls out from his position piloting. He doesn’t use the comm, instead raising his voice and letting it echo in the space around them.

“Who’ll be there?” Sam asks, quiet but close by. He’s looking for reassurance that none of them can give.

Steve turns to look at him, head still tilted back against the headrest of his seat, and tries to smile. It doesn’t work. His smile is a small dead thing now but he tries and he knows that Sam understands the gesture for what it is. He’s trying, still, _always_ trying. Sam looks good, clean and healthy like he hasn’t been in a long time. Steve regrets dragging him into this but not as much as he is grateful for it. Without Sam, without any one of them, this would have been impossible. He’s in civi’s - they all are - and it’s a good look on him. Jeans and a t-shirt that’s just the wrong side of too tight on his arms. Both blue, both calming. Steve doesn’t know how to answer the question. Knows that the one he is really asking is slightly different but the same and Steve doesn’t have the answer. Doesn’t have any certainties.

Natasha appears suddenly in his line of vision, her pale hand the first thing he notices as it closes around Sam’s right shoulder. Steve watches as Sam looks away from him and up at her, watches as the muscles in his neck flex and move with the movement and a heavy swallow. “It’ll be fine,” she tells him and Steve knows she’ll be smiling without looking, keeping his eyes on the taunt skin of Sam’s neck. She doesn’t believe it any more than they do but it’s a nice sentiment.

“We’ll be fine,” Steve states into the silence that falls between the three of them. That’s something he is sure of.

He looks up and sees it as the smile on her face shifts into something more real. Yes. They will be fine. They know that much. He tries on another smile for them before looking away, shifting his focus back to the rolling of his own thoughts.

It feels like gearing up for a mission. Preparing for the drop, for the fight, for the hits his body will take. He wishes he were in the suit but instead he’s got his own jeans and t-shirt, his own jacket. It’s the same one he’s had since he woke up, the same one he wore when he left after the Battle of New York. It’s as much a uniform, armour, as the suit is these days. Natasha brought it when she came. Any touches of home that any of them have she brought to them. A backpack full of things. For Clint, a plaid shirt that had already seen better days, pictures that none of them look at too close and a phone not unlike the one Steve sent to Tony. Sam got pictures - Riley, Steve knows, and a woman that he doesn’t recognise. A letter that Steve never asked about. Wanda got a letter of her own, a sweatshirt Steve thinks belonged to her brother. Her red jacket. Steve got his jacket. Nothing else.

Two minutes pass in silence, nothing but the hum of the jet and the steady rhythm of their combined breathing that Steve has long since gotten used to, before Clint inhales sharp. Shock.

“Guys,” he calls quick and all three of them turn towards where Clint is sitting, hands suddenly off the controls. Steve stands in a fluid motion before the word is even fully out of his mouth, fists clenching and -

“Apologises, Mr Barton.” The voice, a soft Irish brogue  that Steve’s only heard maybe twice before, fills the jet. The new AI. “Standard protocol for incoming aircraft,” she tells them without pause.

“A little warning, maybe?” Clint snaps back, eyes up on the ceiling like Steve remembers they all had done back in the Tower. Back when it was Jarvis they had been speaking to.

“You’ll be landed on the visitors pad,” the AI carries on over Clint, completely ignoring the comment, ignoring that he had even spoken. “The Avengers representative will be waiting for you there.” A slight buzz, too low for the rest of them to pick up on Steve guesses, and then nothing. Back to the hum of the jet.

“She’s gone,” he tells the others as he lets his fist uncurl. He doesn’t sit down though. He can feel that they’ve picked up pace.  

Sam is standing now too and Natasha’s hand has finally dropped from his shoulder. They all stare as Clint stands, eyes shooting back to the controls even as he moves into the back of the jet where they all huddle together.

“Well,” he huffs on a heavy breath, “that was fucking rude.”

Sam’s warm chuckle answers and Steve watches as the two smile at each other, small but open, while him and Natasha stand stone faced and still. The AI has sent his stomach plummeting. It isn’t a good start. Isn’t the welcome he had doubted but hoped they’d get. They’ve no right to expect something else but it’s still cold. The way Clint was spoken over, the lack of warning. It’s clear that the AI at the very least isn’t happy they are here.

They can all feel it as the jet slows and spins that way that it always does before it lands. The soft hfft as they touch ground echoes like it never has in the space between the four of them.

_This is it,_ Steve thinks watching as the back opens up and the light of a warm autumn day filters into the artificially lit space. _Here we go._ He starts to move, twisting and moving his feet in the direction of out as a hand lands on his arm. Looking down he sees that same pale skin, tidy short nails and the cracked black leather of a sleeve. Natasha.

“We go together,” she tells him.

There are only two people waiting for them at the edge of the landing area. The Compound stands behind them, gloriously white and bright, exactly like Steve remembers it being. It had been a beacon to him back then. A sign that while some things might be mired in evil and darkness, secrets and lies hidden nearly everywhere, this place, _these people,_ were something different. They were flawed but trying, always trying, to drag those dark things out and into the light. He had ignored then how he was the one holding the secrets. Bringing the shadows into the space they’d all managed to carve out together.

They are both instantly recognisable. Rhodes and Tony. Steve had known deep down it would be the two of them but he had hoped, both for Sam and for himself, that maybe he’d been wrong. Rhodes is dressed down - cargo trousers and a t-shirt just like them, but with the addition of a metal frame attached to his legs. The braces. They had all seen them on the news, in the papers. Yet another miracle advancement Tony had made, helping his best friend walk. Tony is in full SI get up, a suit that probably costs more money than Steve could even guess at, and sunglasses. Always sunglasses.

“Welcome back,” Rhodes greets them with a wide open smile when they are near enough, the four of them stopping in a line before them. “It’s good to see you all.” He sounds so sincere.

“Rhodey,” Natasha sighs, a smile in it too, and steps out from their line to embrace him.

Steve watches her back as she does it, watches the shift of leather, the motion of her hair against the collar, watches as it moves back to his side. He can’t look anywhere else.

“Hey man,” Clint adds, not stepped forward but shifting, making it clear who he’s addressing with that. Clint cares about Tony alot. Steve had missed that, way back when. He’d thought they were friendly, thought they got along. He hadn’t quite noticed just how much time they spent together or how much respect seemed to pass between the two of them. Clint, more than the rest of them maybe, had been twisted up by the line that had been cut between them. He’d said things, Steve knows, they all know, in the Raft.

“Hey, Barton.” It’s the first time Tony has spoken and it draws Steve’s gaze to him. Moth to the flame. He’s looking at Clint, head tilted and a small smile that’s just as closed as Rhodes was open on his face. There’s a beat of heavy silence before Tony speaks again, the hard clearing of his throat loud in the open air. “Wanda said to tell you she’ll be back tomorrow, next day at the latest. Her and Vision are, well, not too sure what exactly her and Vision are doing. Best not to ask.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Clint nods. “I thought she’d be here.”

“She waited two weeks after you signed but,” Rhodes shrugs, careless. “They wanted to explore, fix whatever happened between them.”

Clint nods too, understanding passing over his face. Steve watches him now. He looks more relaxed than he has in weeks. He cares about Wanda, too. Steve’s sometimes stunned dumb by the amount Clint cares about people. The open way he is about it, too. Like it isn’t nothing.

“You’re rooms are like you left them. Cleaned,” they are assured, “but nothing was touched. Tony put them on lock down. You’ll need your codes to get in but that’s standard. We’ve got nothing planned, not until training starts back up in the morning. We’ve moved it to eleven. Let everyone settle. Get your feet back under you. It’s still mandatory attendance. Eh, dinner, I, moved it. Seven. It’s just me and Vision here mostly, so,” Rhodes cuts off them, sounded uncomfortable for the first time. About dinner.

“Seven’s great,” Steve answers, wanting to save the man. No need for it to be uncomfortable. If dinner is the only thing that’s changed he’ll eat his own hat.

Rhodes laughs at that, Natasha and Clint too, and the tension but had been there dissipates. It’s not gone but it’s less. Only him and Tony still look like they’re choking on it.

“We need to talk.”

It’s said cold, flat. A statement. An order, maybe. Steve wonders just what his eyes look like under those sunglasses right now. Wonders if he’s glaring. If they’re burning angry, if they’re cold and hard. Wonders if they look like they did when he held the shield over his chest.

Tony doesn’t even wait for his nod of reply before he turns and starts walking, not towards the compound but away from it. Steve hadn’t taken the opportunity to look around before but he can see where they are heading, a black and gold helicopter sitting off to the side, out of the way but easily reachable from their location. It shocks him a little to see it. Whenever he thought of Tony, he thought of him here at the Compound. Rhodes had said it’s just him and Vision, though, and the helicopter is no doubt going to be used. So maybe that’s just another things he’s had wrong. Maybe Tony won’t be here. Maybe this is it, the only opportunity Steve is going to get to set things at least a little right. He focuses on Tonys back as they walk, keeping five steps behind him the whole way. The other man is just as tense as he is, Steve can see it in the lines of his shoulder, the way his trousers bunch tight against the hands clenched in both pockets.

He doesn’t want to do this now. Not ever, really, but definitely not now. He can’t think what he would possibly say to make it better, to ease the hurt that sits heavy between them. This might be it, though, so he’ll do it. Tony stops just before he reaches the helicopter, turning to face Steve in a fluid motion. He’d forgotten how Tony moved out of the suit. He’s so controlled in it, movements sharp, hard, mechanical. Out of it he is something else entirely.

“Look, this isn’t about you and I. This isn’t anything about us. That’s not what I want to talk about,” Tony huffs, hand reaching up to snatch the glasses off his face. His eyes aren’t looking at Steve, instead focused on the ground, on the trees, on the air, on anything but him.  

“I’m sorry.” It bubbles out of him before Steve can stop it and once it is out, he can’t take it back. It’s true. He is. Sorry, so sorry.

“No, see, no. No, okay? Don’t say that to me again. No. Ever,” Tony snaps, looking at him now. His eyes are sharp and burn him when Steve looks at them. “ I don’t want to discuss what happened with you. Never. This isn’t - we - we are not something I want to fix. Accept it. Past. Done. It’s something different. Some..This - Jesus, this is hard. I don’t wanna tell you this.”

“I don’t understand.” Silence and then something clinks. Sudden. “Bucky? This is about Bucky?" Tony nods, still looking at him and Steve watches as his eyes loss that sharpness. Watches as they turn sad and apologetic. As they flick away from his own and then back, over and over.

“Please,” he gasps out, desperate. _Please don’t let her be dead. Let her be okay. Let it be something good. Please. Bucky. Buckybuckybuckybuck._ Anything. He needs to hear it. Anything. He will take literally anything. Any news. Any information. Pleasepleaseplease.

“I found her. Well, she found me.”

No. He can barely breathe. Bucky. He found her.

“When? When? How?” _I don’t wanna tell you this. “_ She’s okay? She’s alive?”

“She’s okay,” Tony assures him quick and there’s even a smile. Small but there. Honest. Tony doesn’t lie, not even to him, not even to people that deserve it.

He’d been panicking, breathing fast and hard. God, this isn’t, he can’t think. His brain feels fuzzy, slow moving and just not there. Bucky is alive. Tony found her.

“Rogers,” Tony starts, getting Steve to look up from the ground he’d been staring at. He hadn’t registered looking down. Hadn’t registered the grass. Hadn’t registered anything but Bucky. _She’s okay._ He hasn’t known she’s been okay since fortythree. He’d forgotten what it felt like to not have the weight of it on his chest. The weight of his own breaking heart pushing in at him. “Steve,” Tony snaps, patience gone and so Steve looks up, looks fully at him.

“Thank you,” he breathes out with everything he has. It hurts to get the word out, his breath short. Panting. He’s panting, pulling in too much air too hard.  He means it with every single bit that makes him up. He takes a single step forward before he stops himself. Before he remembers he shouldn’t. He had found her. “Thank you, Tony.”

He hadn’t stopped looking. Steve had been sure he wouldn’t but there was always a traitorous part him his mind, the part that tells him the ugliest of truths, that told him he would deserve it if Tony did. He’d deserve it if he ruined the best chance Bucky had at being found.

“Don’t, seriously. Don’t fucking thank me. I did not do it for you. She doesn’t - jesus, fuck, Rogers, she doesn’t want to see you.”

_She’s okay._

_She’s okay._

_She doesn’t want to see you._

No. No. Not this. Please. “I don’t,” he starts, stopping when the word choke him coming out.

Tony isn’t looking at him anymore. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. She just can’t right now. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, fuck, I didn’t want anyone to have to tell you this. I wouldn’t wish this on you. Not on anyone but definitely not on you. Not - anyway. Reality. I didn’t want it to be me. But she asked.”

That’s it. She asked. Steve remembers that. Remembers how hard it used to be to go against something Bucky asked of him. He had done it, once, twice, five times at most, but it had been torture everytime. Bucky asked so little of anyone that when she did, when she asked you to do something for her, it felt like a sin to go against that.  _She doesn’t want to see you._

She’s asking him to stay away. To leave her alone. He can do that. He will do that. “Alright.”

“Alright?”

Nodding Steve looks away, looks back towards the Compound. “Alright, I won’t try and see her.” Tony’s sigh of relief is as loud as an explosion. “Where is she? She’s healthy? Safe? Happy?” Another sigh and Steve isn’t sorry. Did he really think it would be that easy? “She’s safe?” he asks again. Because if not? Then he will see her. Will do whatever it takes to make her safe, even if that means going against what she wants. He needs her to be safe. There is no him without her. That’s what he has always thought and it’s been proven. What has he been these last years?

“Safe as houses in New York, with me. You won’t get to her,” he states, flat and hard. “Even if you try,” Tony adds and it is said like a threat. It is a threat.

“I won’t.” And he won’t. With Tony, she’s safe. Steve believes that.

“Right, you won’t. So New York. She’s healthy. I,” Tony pauses and Steve looks back at him, finds his gaze and locks with it. “She’s not unhappy, I don’t think. Not anymore than she should be, given everything. She smiles, sometimes. Not a lot. Mostly with the kid. Or with the bots. They like her. She doesn’t - she’s, Bucky, she’s dealing. Doing the best she can.”

Steve doesn’t know what to do with the open honestly and affection he can see in that answer. Tony cares about her. Alot. Enough that he can’t hide it like he hides everything. Enough, maybe, that he isn’t even trying to hide it even though he is in front of Steve. Steve, who he hates. Who he doesn’t trust. Enough to mention this kid, whoever that might be, and the robots Steve has seen him take such care in cleaning.

This is all too much. Steve wants nothing more than to run and hide. To be alone. To bury himself back down and let his insides burn with the knowledge that Bucky is okay. That she is alive and healthy and does not want to see him. That she has made the choice to be away from him, which he always knew she would eventually. That she’s finally making the right choice for her. That she’s letting someone else call her Bucky.

Steve feels himself physically recoil at that, a whole body movement that he couldn’t stop if he tried. She’s letting Tony call her Bucky. It shouldn’t be that that finally breaks him but it is.

“I tried to tell you. When she let me find her. I phoned. You didn’t answer.” It’s not an accusation. It’s not a defense. Nothing but Tony stating facts. Steve has heard him do it so many times before - in the workshop, in the field, in the kitchen while he critiqued Bruce’s cooking. He’s being kind.. It feels like a fist to the gut.  “She wrote to you. I put it in your room. I,” Tony hesitates and Steve looks at him again, catches him just as he turns and starts walking the few steps that separate him from the helicopter. He starts speaking again once his back is fully turned, once he’s lifted the sunglasses back onto his face, pulled himself firmly away from Steve and his misery. “I am sorry that you’ve come back to, to this. Not to her. This is good, though. Take it as good. A little. She is safe. Hydra won’t get her again. I won’t let them get her. I promise. So, the letter. Read it.”

Steve doesn’t remember the walk to his room. Doesn’t remember the helicopter departing, doesn’t remember even the movement of his body. His mind is a mass of pain and relief and awe and gratitude and love and _buckybuckybucky_ until suddenly his knees bend and his right hand reaches out. His fingers graze and then lock tight around expensive paper as he sits on the bed, eyes closed and hand moving, clutching at the letter, _Bucky’s letter_ , and bringing it to rest over his chest.

He feels no urge to open his eyes. No urge to open the letter. This, right now, the simple knowledge that he is holding something that she has held, that she has poured her thoughts into, that’s more than enough. More than he can comprehend right now. It’s all happening too fast, too slow, years and decades too slow, but too fast for his mind to comprehend.

Bucky is safe. Bucky is with Tony. Bucky is not with Hydra.

Jesus. The relief is unbelievable. He’d known he was carrying the weight of the uncertainty, the constant threat of someone telling him she was suffering, that she was dead, but he hadn’t realised what it would feel like when it was gone. It’s like he’s been given the serum again, like his body has changed and been shaped into something more than it was before. He can breathe again.

There are so many questions he wants to ask, so many answers he _needs._ He wants to see her, wants to see his Bucky again. He feels like his eyes are dying without her in their field of vision, like his insides are stretching out towards something now that he knows where she is. Like his heart, his soul, everything in him that makes him _him_ are already halfway to New York. It’s not far. He could run. Be there in hours, minutes. He could see her before the days over. Could gorge himself on her. On her smell, the sound of her voice, the feel of her hair through his fingers. His fingers clench tighter around the letter at that thought, at the sense memory it pulls up for him. He opens his eyes, an effort to distract himself, pull him back into the present. Into reality. _She doesn’t want to see you. She doesn’t want to see you._

He won’t force himself on her. God, he wants to. He burns with it. He won’t though. Not to her. He’s done more than enough harm there.

The envelope looks as expensive as he knew it would, had felt it would. There’s a clear grain on the beige surface and as he unclenches and lets his fingers relax, caress instead of crush, it’s easy to feel it. To let his fingers trace the pattern of it as he moves it to his lap, lifts both hands now to hold it.

_Stevie_

One word. Small, flowing letters that take up so little space on the surface. Just that simple word, Stevie not cold, hard Steven or simple, quick Steve. _Stevie._ The sound of his choked off sob is loud in the room, echoing of the walls he hasn’t seen in years now.

It gives him the strength to open it. He feasts his eyes on her flowing script, the writing that he knows better than his own. Tilted and messy, quick and careless. Bucky never worried about pretense.

  _Stevie,_

_It’s been so long since I’ve written to you. I’d worried my fingers wouldn’t remember the way of it, my mind wouldn’t think up the words I wanted to say to you. I shouldn’t have. It’s coming easy, just like it had all those months I wrote to you every day. And all the years before that where we spoke every day. Talking never came hard for me when it was you I was talking at. You remember how I used to go on and on? That’s why I did it, even when it was hard, even when I had little to say. It still surprises me that you didn’t know I was hiding something from you. My words always looked so twisted to me, once I had finished and read it back. I’d thought it was a fools effort, trying to hide anything of myself from you. Do you still have the letters? I hope you do. I’d like to see them again someday. I think it would help me know myself better, if I could see proof of what I used to care so much about._

_I try and remember what I wrote. I’ve been trying the whole time but I can never shape out a letter in my mind. All I remember is being so afraid for you. Afraid for James and Robert, too. Do you know what happened to them? Tony told me, once I managed to work up the guts to ask. He gave me a file, paper and card, after I refused to look at it on his computer screens. He’s trying to train me a little, I think. They’re dead, of course. Both from the War, though only Bobby died in Europe. James at least made it home. I think that would have been a comfort. Even little Eddie is gone. Momma, too. Everyone really. Everyone but you and me. Isn’t that strange? I think about the girls I knew from training and then from Europe, how I felt closer to them after such a short time. Closer than I ever felt to anyone from back home but you and my family. I think about the people from the neighbourhood too. About who made it back. What they did once they got there. What their grandchildren are doing now. Our friends, gone, to the last. Do you think on it? I can’t see how you could not but, then, there is a lot about you that I can’t see now._

          _I see you everywhere here, on those computers and the television. They speak about you on the radio and Peter has shown me the comics they made about you. He wanted me to see it in a way that didn’t make me recoil back, I think. It’s you - your eyes, your new body. Your hair still curls the same way at the front. Maybe it would be different if we had seen each other more than that single time after you were changed. Maybe then I could see my Stevie in you now. But I don’t._

         _I think it’s me. That I’ve forgotten who you were, who I was. Or maybe I remade you in my mind. Shaped you into something that you aren’t in order to keep myself sane._

_Do you remember that night we spent together? That one night we had after you had been changed. I was in awe of you. I remember holding you hand and I couldn’t believe they were your hands to begin with. They were so smooth. Soft and smooth. Like Eddie’s. That’s who they reminded me of, Eddie back before there was even much talk of war. Little Eddie with his baby skin, his body that hadn’t yet had to weather the world. You’re hands were so calloused before. Worn and hard in parts. I loved them. They were a sign of just how strong I knew you were, a sign that not one person could actually ignore. I used to take every damn excuse I could find to hold your hand. That was one of the things you never denied me, even when you tried to hold us apart. You could never stop yourself from letting me hold onto your hand. But they were smooth then and it was like you had been rewritten, like the signs that I knew, the ways I knew you, like they had been written over. Replaced. But you let me hold your hand. And you spoke and your voice was the same. The way you touched me was the same._

_My hands are smooth now, too. I’m so afraid you won’t recognise them. I don’t think I could live with that. And you won’t. These aren’t the same hands I had before. Just like you, I’ve been written over._

_That’s why I’m the one holding us apart now, Steve. Isn’t it strange that it’s me? It’s never been me before. Not once, I was the one always dragging you forward, closer and closer with me. But now I think maybe that wasn’t fair to you. Did I even give you the choice?_ _Parts of me want to run straight to you. Tony offered, after I had settled here. Has offered many times since. Offered to try and contact you again. I said no. I wanted more time. I still want more time. I don’t know when I’ll have ever had enough. Which is odd, isn’t it? Both of us have had more time than anyone has a right to ask God for._

_So I’m going to stay here, with Tony. And you should stay with your team. Tony has told me about them. They seem like your kind of people. He doesn’t speak about you often. Peter explained what happened to me, or at least the parts which he and the rest of the world seem to know about. I didn’t want to go looking. I wish I had. It made me ask Tony about you and that is what gives me hope. We had avoided the topic of you before then. Me, because I was afraid and Tony trying to spare me. I know you are fighting, that things have passed between you that I don’t know about, but it was the first time where I saw you. Saw you as I remember you. When Tony speaks about you, I have a little faith that maybe you are really my Stevie. That this isn’t all a trick my own mind is playing on me._

_You were never easy, Steve. Not one person that really knew you would have called you easy. You challenge people, push and push them past their limits. You're a cocky Brooklyn punk. You’d snap your cap at anyone, no matter the time of day. You can’t help yourself. The man Tony speaks to me about sounds like that._

          _I knew from the moment I decided I was going to love you my whole life that it wouldn’t be easy. You’d not make it easy. And you didn’t. God, even before you went and became a science experiment you weren’t making it easy. I never thought loving you would lead me here though._

_I’ve put off writing this for weeks and now that I have started I don’t want to stop. Tony is leaving soon, so I have to. He’s been nervous since the pardons came through. I think he wants you all back but in a way he doesn’t have to deal with you. Any of you. Only a bit of that is me, I think. He’s promised to give you this for me and to tell you not to come. He’s nervous about it but that man would do a lot for me. He’s treating me well and he never even seemed to consider doing anything else. I hope you don’t blame him. There isn’t anyone to blame but me. I just - Stevie, I just can’t. I need solid ground._

_If you write, I’ll reply._

_Until the end of the line,_

_Bucky_

Steve reads it through five times, start to finish. Not one word skipped. His mind has been spinning. Unsettled. _I need solid ground._ Steve needs it too, has been needing it since he woke up and this, those words, the hint of Bucky that’s in each one of them, that’s his solid ground. That’s his safe harbour, his port in the storm.

There are too many feelings in him right now, too much emotion that’s all blending into one mass of just raw feeling. This is Bucky. His Bucky. He knows that is who she is, even if she’s doubting it. He can be the one that’s strong now. She’d been the pillar since the month after her Pop passed, since she regained her strength and now it’s his turn. She’s led him back to himself more times than he can count. This time it’s his turn.

  



	3. Chapter Three

“Steve, man, we thought you’d never come out. You must be starved,” Sam calls out as soon as he steps into the common kitchen, voice loud and quick, trying to hide the strain in it. They had been worried.

They’re all there, workout gear on and despite Clint at the stove, they’ve clearly been waiting on him. It’s later than they would all usually get up, later than they’d usually eat.

“Hey,” Steve answers, ignoring the rest and giving Sam a small smile. He answers it as he gets up and joins Clint near the stove. Natasha doesn’t move from her seat at the table. They’re all looking at him and not trying to be subtle about it.  

Regret and a little guilt build up inside him but Steve pushes it down, keeps moving forward until he can take a seat at the table too. He leaves the seat next to Nat empty, working his way round to take the seat next to where Sam had been. It puts him across from her and it’s deliberate. He isn’t hiding, nope, the opposite. Steve lets her look her fill as the other two rattle about in the kitchen behind his back.  Natasha’s gaze doesn’t stray from him, not even as the pair in the kitchen make more and more noise.

He won’t feel guilty for taking the time he needed. Yesterday was - god, even now he can’t put into words exactly what yesterday means to him. It’s the best day of his life - no, not the best, second best, everything will always be second to that day in the city. It’s the worst in a way, too, but he can fix it. He can work on it. A mission. Steve thrives on a mission and this won’t be any different. He can live on Bucky’s words forever if he needs to.

A plate skids into position in front of him and draws Steve’s attention back to the present. Clint’s falling into the his seat next to Natasha, his own plate still unsettled on the table in front of him. Natasha’s is still in his hand, on it’s way to being sat down gently in front of her. Like always, Clint is more careful with anything to do with her than with anyone else. The plates are full and still steaming. Bacon, eggs, toast, his with more than double the amount of the rest. It smells amazing and Steve can’t stop himself from leaning forward and inhaling deep.

“Right?” Clint laughs, lifting his fork and saluting him with it. “American fucking bacon, man. Yesssss. Nothin’ like it anywhere else.”

Sam laughs, the sound light, as he comes over and takes his seat too. “Yeah and don’t we know it. Missed this. There’s water,” he adds, tilting his head towards Steve and then at the jug in the middle of the four of them. Taking the hint Steve pours the still cold liquid into the four glasses, focusing on the task instead of the sudden hunger that’s making itself more than known. He is starving.

They eat in silence. Peaceful, calm silence. It’s nice. Different, but nice. Before meals had always been loud affairs, someone always slipping in or slipping out half way through. Laughter. Tension. Serving platters filled high in the middle of the table rather than individual portions.  _ Family style,  _ Nat had said around a smile once. Then, after, they’d been loud but in a different way. Rushed more often than not. Mission debriefs or intel drops being discussed. Clint and Sam going over history or basic field medicine with Wanda. Discussions of politics going on. The Accords, the situation in the Middle East, Hydra. The responsibility of governments to their citizens. Arguments that never got as far as people storming out because, well, where was there to go?

He finishes last and gets up before he even settles his now empty fork down on the plate. They had all gathered their dishes in the middle and he adds his to the top, lifting the pile and heading for the kitchen. It’s just like he remembers it being. The sponge and cloth could be the same, sitting in just the place he last saw them. White with blue stripes. White with the rough blue that Tony used to get so annoyed at him for using on the good dishes. He can hear Natasha gathering the glasses and jug up and coming to join him. She dries. It’s a system they’ve fallen into whenever they’ve had the time to rest. Clint and Sam cook. Steve washes, Natasha dries. Wanda helps everyone - setting the table, adding spice when Sam lets her, takes the dishes from Natasha’s hands and puts them away.

“So.”

One word that Steve, even with his enhanced hearing, can barely hear over the rush of ruining water.  _ So. _

“What time is it?” he asks in reply, head down and hands covered in suds. The water is off now and his voice carries over to the other two sitting at the table. It’s not that big of a distance and he isn’t trying to keep quiet, keep this intimate and between just the two of them. Nat has given him the option but he doesn’t need it. He will need to tell it, he knows that, but nothing in him wants to do it more than once.

“Just after half ten,” Clint answers in a distracted tone, half his attention off on something else.

Half an hour. No time for him to wait until this is done then. They have just enough time to tidy and then they’ll need to go. It’s a five minute stroll to the training rooms from here. Maybe this is the best way, anyway. Steve can focus on the moment of his hands, the flush rising on his skin from the scalding hot water. He can look at them, at the dishes, rather than at Sam or Clint or Natasha.

As if she can just tell he’s thinking on her, Nat bumps into his side left side. Light but there. _Come on._ He can hear it as clear as if she’d said it. _Tell us._ “Tony found her.”

Saying the words brings a smile to his face, small and private and yes, this is the right time to do it. When they can’t see his face. Natasha can see some - he can see the way her entire head flicked to him, fast enough that if she was anyone else he’d be worried for her neck - but only some. His left side. She’ll be able to see the tilt of his smile. The way his eyes have gone soft.

“Man! Cap,” Sam calls out, the sound of the legs of Clint’s chair hitting the group echoing the words. “That’s amazing.”

Yes. It is.

“We’re happy for you, Steve,” Clint adds, voice soft. “When is she coming? I - we - can’t wait to meet her, man.”

And there it is. His fingers clench around the plate he’s holding and he quickly releases it, letting if clatter into the sink. The sound is loud, angry. For a moment he had forgotten the rest and had just been basking in the joy of Bucky begin found.

“She’s alright?”

Steve nods, sharp, and picks up the plate again. Gathers the cloth from where it’s sunk to the bottom of the water. “She’s healthy,” he manages to choke out at her. “I don’t know much. She -”

“You don’t need to say anything, Steve,” Clint tells him.

“I want to,” he interrupts, cutting off whatever else any of them had been about to say. This isn’t about them reassuring him. That - he doesn’t need that. “I don’t know much,” he admits, hands moving, regaining the rhythm him and Nat have when doing this. Eyes focused down. “She is with Tony. Has been for awhile. I don’t know how long. He’s - I don’t know if he is helping her of if. No, he is. He cares about her and she, she seems to care about him to from what I can tell. He’s helping her and she wants to stay there. She doesn’t want to see me.”

There. It’s out there. He doesn’t feel any better or worse for having said it. It’s just how things are right now.

Everyone is silent as they finish the dishes. Steve can feel that an air has settled over them all. Sam and Clint are uncomfortable behind him, both trying to work out what exactly to say to him if he has to guess. They don’t need to say anything. There isn’t anything to say. Natasha is tense beside him. Her usually fluid movements are stiff and Steve knows this is her uncomfortable. Her hurting. She wants to help him, either with words or with her actions, but doesn’t know how to.

As the water drains away Steve lets both of his hands clench on the worktop edge. Lets his head sink down, hang between his shoulders. Gives himself just one more second before he turns round and faces them. While he does it Nat moves off, probably to stand by Clint. Steve doesn’t need to listen to know her movements now.

They’re all looking at him when he turns around.

“This isn’t something that’s bad. She’s safe, healthy. _Safe,_ ” he stresses, reaching back to clench the work top again. Grounding himself. _I need solid ground._ He tries not to think of how he’s echoing Tony’s words to him yesterday. Take it as good. “This is her wanting time to...” Steve stops, not sure how to carry on. Wanting time to find herself, he was gonna say, but that’s not fair. That’s personal. Not his to share. “She wrote to me,” he tells them instead, smiling and finally looking up at them.

Sam smiles and Clint tries, but Natasha won’t even look at him. Her eyes focus on the wall that Steve would have been blocking with his back when they were all sitting at the table.

“That’s,” Clint starts, trying again to smile. “Well, I wanna say that’s great but. Well.”

“No, it is great. That’s - it’s everything. Bucky is alive,” he stresses, smiling at them again, this one a small but so much more true thing.

Saying those words and knowing without a doubt that they are true, that  _ Bucky is alive,  _ God. It’s everything.

“I’m happy for you, Steve.” Sam states, finally moving from his seat and moving towards him. Steve lets go of the counter the closer he gets, lets his arms hang loose at his sides. The hug isn’t unexpected or unwelcome.

Steve pats him on the back twice before he backs away, shifting to the side so he can see Clint and Nat behind Sam. She’s not moved at all and Clint has gone still in solidarity. They do this sometimes. Nat gets lost in something and he, Clint, goes with her. Acting sentry. Standing guard.

“Natasha,” he makes his voice as soft as he can on her name, his tread soft as he walks forward.

Her gaze snaps round to him and Steve freezes two steps forward from Sam. “We should go,” she tells them. “Now.”

They all know she is right but Steve can tell the other two are just as reluctant to follow her retreating back as he is. He’s not sure what has caused this reaction, really, if he’s fully honest. Yes, Natasha struggles with situations outside of her control and yes, this is difficult and something that isn’t easily managed by her. It isn’t something she can fix. Steve is not something she can fix. This is good, though, he’d made that clear. He’d smiled and let her see the real in it. He hadn’t hidden his pain but there’s hope there too and Natasha would have been the first one to pick up on it. He wishes he had the time to work it out, to analyse and get Clint’s insight but he doesn’t. Mandatory team training. Mandatory. Meaning that Tony should be there. Steve has things he needs to say to him and that’s where his attention has gotta be. There’s a letter burning in the left hand pocket of his trousers that he needs to give to him.

That’s what he’d done. Instead of coming out, instead of wallowing in the pain and the guilt that was still there - will always be there - Steve had replied. Written to Bucky. Spent his time rereading her letter and working out just what he wanted to say. His letters way back when had never been like hers. She would flow, write whatever had come to her mind. Well, she did after she told him, let him in on her big secret. He’d always held back. He’d kept things from her, censored the things that he had seen and done. The War wasn’t something he wanted to speak about with her. First because she was safe home in Brooklyn he thought, and he didn’t want to pollute their place with all the evil he was seeing and doing. Then, after, it was because he could see how it was changing her. She had always been like a mirror for him so it shouldn’t have surprised him that it was changing her just like it was changing him. She had enough - was seeing enough - without him adding on top of it. Like always, he thought he was protecting her.

Now he knows that isn’t what she needs. Maybe it wasn’t ever what she needed but he’s almost sure it isn’t now. Steve wants to be certain but he can’t. Bucky doesn’t know herself and that means she’s changed from who he knows. Years and years of experiences he doesn't know about, a Hell that he can’t understand sits between them. He can’t not trust his instincts. They’re all he has left.

So he’s going to be honest. Open. Split himself down the middle and spill out whatever she wants to know onto the pages of paper that connect the two of them. It’s all he can do.

Having to approach Tony will take all this attention - all the extra focus he’s got. The man will be avoiding him. He’d made it clear yesterday that there wasn’t anything left between them that he wanted to build on. Steve doesn’t want to force it, doesn’t want to force himself of someone that he’s already caused so much wrong too but he will. For Bucky, there’s precious little he won’t do.

Only Sam is behind him when the get to the building that holds all the training facilities. Gyms, pools, saunas, a med bay and so many other things that Tony had planned out to house the team. Rhodes, Tony and Scott are waiting for them just inside, all standing facing the entrance. No one is suited up and Steve’s happy he made the choice to wear his work out gear, the same under armour shirt and pants he’d sported so many times in this place before. Rhodes still has the leg braces on, of course, and they give off a soft whine that is instantly recognisable as Stark tech when he moves towards them. Smile open and honest again.

“Right on time,” Rhodes quips, looking them all over. His gaze stalls on Natasha and it reminds Steve of just how observant Rhodes can be.

“What’s on the agenda, boss?” Clint quips as he moves putting himself in the mans line of sight. Protecting again. Natasha won’t thank him for it, though.

Rhodes laughs at that, the sound rich, before he flicks his eyes up to the corner of the room behind Steve and Sam. “Boss. You here that, Fri?”

“Of course, Colonel,” The AI, Fri?, replies. “Not my boss though.”

“So much rude, Tony. You gonna set her straight or am I?” Rhodes asks looking back, turning his back on all of them to focus on where Tony is still standing. He hasn’t moved.

Scott however has. He’s in the space between Tony and the rest of them, still moving forward. When he reaches Clint he grasps his arm and laughs as Clint pulls him into a hug, the sound of palms slapping too hard into skin filling the room.

“Good to see you, tic tac,” Sam calls as he too moves forward, getting a hug of his own when Clint finally lets him go.

“Cap,” Scott greets him with a nod of the head. His crooked smile in place, just like always.

Steve is actually happy to see him, genuinely, and he hopes that shows as he moves forward until he can shake the man's hand. “Hey, Scott. It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, still smiling. Steve is suddenly reminded of the day he left them, a woman who turned into a Wasp appearing out of nowhere to whisk him away. He’s smiled that same smile then. “Where else am I gonna be?”

“He’s a capital A Avenger now,” Rhodes tells them, the whine of the braces signaling his movements loud in the room. Steve looks at him when he gets close enough to clap Scott on the shoulder. “Smallest one yet.”

“Stupidiest, too,” Sam quips.

“Yeah, yeah, miss you too, man.”

“Alright,” Rhodes calls, another clap to Scotts shoulder before he releases him and takes a few steps back. “Training. Just the usual workout stuff, cardio, weights, whatever suits.  We don’t want to be running anything more intensive until Wanda, Vision and the Spider kid can be here.”

The words are enough to break everyone off. Clint starts walking over to the sparring mats, his head constantly twisting to look over his shoulder, making sure that Nat is following him. She does after a beat. Sam is chattering away at Scott, both of them clearly happy to see each other again, as they walk over to the treadmills and other gym equipment. Steve’s happy to see it . Sam and Scott had been the odd ones out a little, back in Wakanda before they had fully decided on what they would spend their exile doing. It had been difficult for Sam when he left them, though Steve has no doubt he understood. It’s hard, separating from people. He knows that. Rhodes takes a few steps closer to Tony, who Steve can’t take his eyes off of, before he seems to think better of it. Instead he diverts, heads off to the side where Steve knows there’s more gym equipment. Not sure what. The room is filled with so many different things than it was before. New, replaced, Steve wasn’t here to have those answers. He doesn’t take the time to look it all over and reacquaint himself, instead following Tony with his eyes. 

He looks more tired than he did yesterday. Steve hadn’t picked up on the obvious signs of his tiredness at the time, too focused on the words he was saying to look too close at the man saying them. He’s in gym clothes too - a ratty t-shirt that looks like it’s almost as old as Tony is and a pair of workout trousers. He looks so much more approachable than the Stark Industries version of himself. No, that’s not really true. Every line of his body screams that he wants to be left alone. If the distance he’s kept between himself and everyone else in the room hadn’t been doing that enough. 

Steve doesn’t plan on letting that stop him.

It’s clear Tony is heading for the weights and so he goes there too. Doesn’t get too close. Leaves a good amount of space between then, puts himself in front of a punching bag while Tony gets himself set up on the bench. Hand weights. Tony had always preferred working on his upper body, Steve remembers. Him being there isn’t suspicious. Everyone knows he loves the bag, loves dancing with it until even his muscles start crying for relief. He keeps watch while he finds the rhythm of the bag, lets his body get lost to the motions of it. It’s not enough to tire him out, not enough to do more than focus his mind really, but that’s fine. Steve can use the focus, use the time. Let Tony focus himself into relaxing a little. It doesn’t take too long.

Steve sees it. It happens gradually. The relaxing of the harsh line of his spin. The way he lets his breathing start to come more naturally. Less controlled. More real. Lets the weights lift quicker, less controlled there too. He watches it all, hitting the bag and listening to the exertions of everyone around him. No one is talking anymore. Sam and Scott had kept up a playful back and forth to begin with, the sound of it just flitting in and out of Steve’s concentration. They’re all focused on the work out now, the relaxation he knows they all find in here, in the burn of letting their energy have an outlet. The next time the bag comes at him, swinging back from a hard uppercut, Steve grabs in instead of hitting. Lets the energy of the motion be absorbed by his arms, bringing it to a stop. 

He takes two steps before he opens his mouth, quiet but clear when he calls out Tony’s name. The change is immediate. His spin goes rigid again, every muscle clenching as the weigh in his right hand freezes on it’s journey up, bicep curled. 

“Not today, Rogers,” Tony snaps back. He moves to stand, weights still held in each hand. 

“I have questions,” Steve tells him as he takes another step forward. Tony moves closer, too, moving to place the weights back on the rack. They’re close enough that if Steve wanted he could reach and touch him. It won’t even be a stretch. 

Tony slams the weights back into there place, huffing out a quiet laugh when he does it. “You’ve got questions? Right. Well,” he drawls, “that just means I’ve gotta answer them, right? No, wait,” Tony snaps, turning to face Steve and clicking the fingers of his right hand, “no it fucking doesn’t.”

Steve is taken aback by the raw anger. He hadn’t seen any of it yesterday. Not a bit. He’s looking at him like there isn’t anything but hate between them. Jesus. “I’m so-”

“No,” Tony snaps quick, cutting him off and taking a step closer to him. “I told you, no apologies. I don’t want to hear it.”

Right. Right. This isn’t about them. Tony doesn’t want to…”I have a letter,” Steve tries, looking down at to his own trousers as his fingers open the zip of his pocket. He waits a beat before he pulls it out, waits to see if Tony might walk off, might refuse him this. He could, Steve knows. He wouldn’t even really blame him if he did. 

“You have a letter.”

It’s said with scorn, open and clear scorn, but it’s a prompt too.  _ Move, Rogers. He isn’t gonna wait around for you to decide it’s safe to pull it out.  _

He’d taken care to fold in, one, twice, in clean lines before he put it in his pocket. It’s a white envelope, nothing like the quality of the one Bucky’s letter came in. It’s basic office supplies, something he had in his room left over from before. Back when he had written a letter to Peggy. The pen he used isn’t as nice either. It’s nothing special and his chicken scratch looks ridiculous sprawled across the front.  _ Bucky.  _ The five letters that up so much space you can’t even see them all on the section exposed. Nothing but half a k and a full y. It feels too light in his hands and now that it’s out, he doesn’t want to hand it over. It’s a connection, however thin, and he can’t let that go.

A huff of air has him looking up and back at Tony. The hatred is still there, cold and hard in his eyes but there’s something else too. Something that isn’t for Steve. “I won’t read your fucking letter,” he snaps. “I don’t want to know what you have to say. Not to me or to her.”

Steve just nods at that. Okay. There wasn’t a moment where he had considered that Tony would do that but he understands, takes it for what it is. He will give it to Bucky. He holds it out into the little space that’s left between them. They both ignore the way that both of their hands tremble as Tony takes it from him. 

“Can you,” Steve starts but then cuts himself off. Chokes on the words he’s holding in. He’s asking too much already.  _ Don’t push.  _

“What?”

Steve just shakes his head and looks away, back over to the rest of them. No one has stopped to listen to them. If they were other people Steve would say they hadn’t even noticed. They would all have noticed though. This privacy is only for show. 

“What?” Tony snarls, too close and angry for Steve to keep looking away. The other man feels like a threat just now. A danger. “Right, well if that’s all you’ve got. If that’s all you’ve fucking got,” Tony snaps, “I’m calling it. Friday.”

“Starting up, Boss. Nothing will interfere with the flight path,” the AI, Fri which is Friday, states. Her volume is pitched low enough that it’s intimate, not coming from the speakers in the room but from somewhere - something - on Tony. 

“Tony,” Rhodes calls from somewhere behind Steve. He’s moving, that whine sounding again, but not towards them. Towards the door. He’s gonna walk Tony out, Steve guesses. Make sure he’s okay. That Steve hasn’t done anything too bad to him. 

“Yeah,” Tony sighs, shoulders slumping for a moment as the anger leaves him before he squares them again and starts moving. Away from Steve and towards his friend. The letter is still clutched in his hand and Steve almost can’t believe the way he’s holding it. Gentle, light. Like he cares about the thing he’s holding.  _ For Bucky _ , Steve reminds himself sharply. He cares for Buck. 

Angry, suddenly so fucking angry, he heads back to the bag. Starts hitting it as soon as he’s in reach. Pounding, just letting his muscles move instead of seeking out a rhythm or running the moves. Just letting his body work itself out.

“Maybe you should stay.” It’s Rhodes. He’s pitched his voice low, over by the door, head down even, but Steve can still hear him even over the pounding of fists against leather. 

“It’s Friday.” Tony.

A sigh that Steve would have missed had he not been on a swing, his fist in the air rather than making contact.

“Right. Right, sorry. I -”

“Don’t apologise. I shouldn’t have let him rile me. I’ve gotta get better at that. Outta practice.” Out of fucking practice at dealing with him. Right. Right. Like they had ever been all that great at it. Like they had ever not been just minutes away from going for the others throat. Like they ever were any other way. Like Steve hasn’t lied to him. 

There’s a sound Steve doesn’t recognise but yeah, there, sunlight streaming into the room suddenly for the windows that line the hallway that connects the training facilities to the rest of the compound. The door opening.

“Keep an eye on the kid for me, yeah? He’s - shit, Rhodey you’re not gonna believe how excited he is about this.” Tony lets out a soft chuckle and Steve punches hard on the next swing, lets the slam of it drown out the sound. “He’s gonna annoy the shit out of you.”

“Laugh it up, Stark, you fucking asshole. A  _ kid.  _ Jesus.”

“Yeah, well. Get him back in one piece and I’ll see you Monday.”

Steve stops so suddenly at that, sudden and fucking stupid with it. Lets the bag hit into him, the force enough that he rocks back on his feet. Everyone has stopped again to look at the noise of the impact, the huff of air he couldn’t stop himself from letting out.  _ Monday.  _ Fucking Monday. His one link to Bucky. Any reply to his letter. Not until Monday. Right. 

Monday. It’s not even noon on Friday. Days, who fucking days seperate them. After just finding this connection yesterday it seems so ridiculously cruel of the world to take it away from him for so long now. Jesus. 

“You alright, Steve?” Sam calls out from his spot over by Scott. He’s breathing heavy, still on the treadmill probably, though Steve can’t hear the noise of the treads anymore. The room is quiet. No more skin on skin hits from Nat and Clint. No more mechanical noises from the machines the rest are using. 

He nods twice, quick and harsh, once, twice and then shakes it off.  _ Come on, Rogers.  _ Two days really, three at the most. What’s that after more than double that number of decades. Nothing, it’s nothing.


	4. Chapter Four

Friday lets her know when Tony lands. She always does but this time Bucky makes the effort to head out into the open space they share together. The sofa that fills most of the space is too big and too soft for her to actually get any comfort from sitting in it. Never mind the wide open windows that it is angled to give the best view of. Bucky gets no comfort from the New York skyline these days. The kitchen is another matter. It’s one of the few things she’s found that she actually, genuinely loves about the future. Everything is always so clean, so sleek. Modern, she thinks, and of course it is. 

The breakfast bar has four stools along its side and Bucky always takes the one furthest away from the windows. It puts her closest to the refrigerator and stove and far enough away that her eyes rarely get caught on the world outside the windows. The book she’d been reading at breakfast that morning is still sitting there, the spin creased and cracked in too many places to count. It’s Peters.  _ On the Road.  _ He’d suggested it to her weeks back and brought it when he came to check in, something that they’ve been doing together since she got officially introduced to him, and she hasn’t quite managed to work out how she’s gonna tell him it isn’t really working for her.

Her hands automatically reach for it as she sits down, both reaching out and pulling it towards the edge of the table before letting it go and moving to smooth of the lines of her trousers. There aren’t any creases there but for some reason -  _ not some reason, don’t lie to yourself, Rebecca -  _ she can’t help herself. The linen is soft under her palms and Bucky only lets her hands smooth up the thighs twice before bringing them up and onto the marble surface in front of her.

It’s just Tony, she reminds herself. That’s it. No need for nerves. No need to be afraid.

As if thinking his name has summoned the man himself the sound of the elevator doors opening fills the penthouse. Tony moans whenever she tells him that, mentions the sound the doors make, tells her that she’s wrong, they’re silent. Not a whisper. Buck can hear it though and she spins, a twist of her legs and a little force from her bare feet on the bar of the stool, until she’s facing him as he walks towards her.

“Hi,” she offers out into the air. He isn’t looking at her, not really, more at the general space of the kitchen behind her.  _ Look at me. Look at me. Please, look at me.  _ “You’re back early.”

Tony mmm’s in reply, still moving forward until he moves close enough that she has to spin back around. Her torso hits into the marble with the motion and she feels her thin jumper ride up a little with it. He heads straight for the coffee pot - always warm and rich and isn’t that a wonder? - and pours himself a cup. She waits in silence, awkward like she seldom is with him these days while he goes through the familiar motions, and just watches as he turns back to face her and lets his eyes fall down on the mug clenched in his white knuckled hands. If they are because of her or someone else, she doesn’t know. Could be her. Probably isn’t, though. Tony knows who she is, he’s sensitive to almost everything about her. Things that Bucky doesn’t even like to acknowledge herself. Like her dislike of conflict. Her  _ fear. _

They don't fight. Her and Tony. Not ever, really. Not since that one fight they had when she first came in. She had still been on edge with him and he hadn’t really started trying to know her yet. She had just been a responsibility to him, a chore, though he hadn’t ever said it. Bucky gets the feeling he had been coming out from under more troubles than she knows about even now and she doesn’t hold any of it against him. Tony seemed to think of her as a package. Something he was holding on to and just waiting to deliver to someone else. Only problem had been Bucky had no intention of being dropped on anyone's doorstep. Not even Steve’s. So they had fought, once and hard, over Steve. Tony wanted to go to someplace in Africa that Bucky had never even heard of. He’d said that while Steve might not have been there then, he had been at one point and he had to be going back at least once in awhile. Take Bucky with him and drop her off there. Like a little obedient pet. Sit. Stay. Wait. Bucky had tried and tried to calmly tell him no. To rationally explain that no, she did not want to go. No, she did not want to see Steve. No, she did not just need time. She wanted - and was going to - stay here. With Tony. No one else.

So, yeah. She’d had a lot to say on that.

They had their second ever fight yesterday. Or maybe it wasn’t a fight. Bucky doesn’t know, just knows that she feels guilt and hurt and tense. She wants Tony to say it’s okay. This one was quieter than the first but maybe it was worse despite the lack of volume or words thrown about. The first time had been misunderstandings, a lack of listening, a lack of communication on both their parts. This time there had been anger and hurt. When Tony had headed out to the Avengers place he had been tense. He’d been tense for weeks, really, ever since the pardons came through. He’d been acting like he was going to face a firing squad and Bucky had honestly felt for him. Genuinely worried about what would happen to him once he met up with these other Avengers that seemed to have caused him so much pain. Of course she knew Stevie -  _ Captain America - _ was one of them but it hadn’t really clicked that Tony’s worries might have been more personal than business. Her personal, even, rather than his.

See, Bucky is selfish. She knows that. Always has been. Bucky’s selfish, hard and cold to those people she doesn’t think of as hers, has been since long before Hydra got their claws into her.

Selfishness meant survival back when she was growing up. It meant helping keep food in bellies and heat in at least one room between their two houses and making sure everyone had clothes that fit and could at least keep them from freezing to their death in the New York air. It meant learning to sew better than any other gal in the neighborhood and being loud and proud about it, meant taking whatever business she could get her little needle holding hands on even if it meant some other girl went without. Meant making sure she had enough money for the medicines that first Stevie then both him and his momma needed. Learning how to throw a punch even though it made people look and talk about her, _that wild whippet Barnes girl, nothing but trouble, needs a Daddy more than she needs a hot meal_. It meant making sure she got schooling, more than almost all the other girls and most of the boys too. Schooling meant she could help bring in money, that she knew enough to understand and learn at Stevie’s mommas knee. That she knew enough to be seen as an option for the nursing schooling that was too expensive by half and more. Meant that she had a chance at convincing Stevie that she was a safe choice, that she could be relied on.

More recently it meant latching on to Tony. Finding him and exposing him - and Peter, she still hasn’t forgiven herself for that - to the Hydra thugs that might still be looking for her. All so Bucky could be safe and hide from people. All so  _ she  _ could live again, instead of just existing. What that would mean to Tony hadn’t really crossed her selfish little twisted heart at the time. It does now though, seeing him struggle with everything that’s on his shoulders. He’s worked his way into being one of the people she likes to think of as hers now. Him and Peter. It’s just them and Steve, now.

But still, selfish. So she hadn’t even thought about what it would mean to him to pass her little message on to Stevie. Her letter and her demand to leave her be. She’d known - maybe? Does she know? Is she just guessing? Who is he now? Who is she? - that he wouldn’t take it easy, Steve never took anything easy, but Tony hadn’t crossed her mind.

He’d been a whirl of rage and hurt when he came home. She’d been sitting where she is now, a long gone cold plate of some food that she had no intention of eating but Friday had insisted be delivered in front of her, when he’d come home. Storming into the space and taking up all the air with his anger. He’d not even stopped, striding right on through and off to the corridor that lead to their bedrooms. His voice had been cold, not like anything she’d ever heard him sound like before when he’d said it. Back to her already.  _ Don’t ask me to do anything like that again. _

So yes Bucky is selfish. Thing is, she can’t apologise. She’s sorry he got hurt by it but Bucky won’t pretend to be sorry that he did it for her.

“Don’t be angry with me,” she tries instead, fingers reaching down to pull her jumper back into place. She doesn’t let her hands smooth it even once before they’re back up and in front of her again. One settling on Peters book, the texture of it so different from the marble. Tony would know that for what it is and she manipulate him into not being angry that way.

She watches Tony as he sighs, watches the way his chest moves with it, the mug and his clasped hands pushed up and out a little with the air. “I’m not,” he tells her as he finally looks up at her. “Not angry. It was a tough day. I knew it would be but, fuck, Bucky it was... I shouldn’t have said what I did yesterday. It’s not on you, my bad day.”

“No,’ Bucky shakes her head a little, ignoring the wisps of hair that fall into her vision. “You were angry and it wasn’t fair of me to ask. I won’t say I’m sorry for it because I’m not. I’m,” she stutters, “Maybe I’m sorry it had to be you though. For sure sorry you had to go and be there.”

That makes him laugh, rich and loud enough that it seems to shake off the anger that’s still been hanging on him since he came in. “God, you two are a fucking pair alright,” he laughs out, his head shaking back and forth now as he walks closer to the other side of the bar, leans his crossed arms on it and puts the yellow mug down. It’s still more than half full Bucky notices, the smell wafting over to her. “No wonder I like you. You’ve got a crooked little heart, just like me. Mean little twins, me and you. I’d do almost anything you asked me to do. Break laws. Bulidings. Build you an identity. Ignore your wardrobe choices. Break  _ people _ ,” he jokes, smirk firm back on his face.

_ I did that,  _ Bucky thinks. She might have played a part in taking it away but she, at least, made sure he got it back. Tony always looks better with a smirk.

“Did you break anyone?” She asks, smiling too and with her right eyebrow up. Sass and bluster. This is more like them. “That why you’re home early today? You been sent to the bad boys room?”

He tries to stop the smirk growing at that but Bucky sees it. She knows his tells now and he knows she can see it, even when he tries to hide it by raising the cup to his mouth and taking a long mouthful. “Not today, moll, I was on my best behaviour.”

“Why then? Had enough?” Bucky asks and she knows Tony will keep up, will understand the sudden shift to serious.

He nods his reply, takes another sip and stands up to his full height before tapping his fingers against the marble worktop. “How’s the book going?”

“I hate it.”

“Told you you would,” Tony replies and the tapping stops. Bucky watches as he reaches down and back, hand going to his own behind. “Got something else for you to read, if you want it.”

A small, folded slip of white is placed onto the marble. It stands out, stark and clean against the flowing greys and creams of the surface. There are two letters on it and the writing is so familiar Bucky feels tears, hot and sudden, spring to her eyes. Her hands reach out for it without thought and it takes her seconds to open it out and start smoothing out the creases. The writing is so so painfully familiar.

“I didn’t think he’d write back,” she chokes out, eyes on the envelope just like her fingers are. They won’t stop moving, constantly running over and over. She doesn’t want to see any creases, any imperfections.

She hears Tony’s hum of reply and it breaks through the fog her mind has settled into. She stops her hands, sudden and obvious, but keeps them on the envelope, dropping them so they cover the writing and the creases both. Looking up she sees he’s watching her, his smirk gone and the concerned forrow in his brow that he gets much to often there instead.

“I’ll leave you to read it,” he tells her as he starts to take a step back, signals what he’s doing with his actions as well as his words. “Don’t wallow, though. That’s a no. I’m not letting you do that,” he assures her, passion in the tone. “Dinner, tonight. Just like always.”

“Italian?” Bucky chokes out, surprised when the word comes out sounding almost normal.

“The order is already placed, Boss,” Friday chimes in.

This is good. This is normal. She can handle this. She doesn’t track Tony’s movements or the chatter between him and Friday as he leaves. Almost like having an endpoint to her fascination has given her permission to lose herself to it again, her eyes go straight back to the letter. Now though, the creases don’t bother her. She just wants at what’s inside. Careful, always careful now with delicate things, she lets her hands lift it and twist it round so the back is too her. So she can’t see her own name staring back up at her. She slips her ring finger up and under the lip and tears it. Gentle, gentle, this, all of it, creases and all, she wants to keep it all.

She honestly had not thought he would reply. She wrote because Tony told her she should. That it would be good, for her. That maybe Steve could help her.

She pulls the pages out - pages, not just one. He’s written a lot, his writing small and cramped on the unlined pages. Jesus, the writing.  _ Steve’s writing. _

_ Bucky, _

_ You’re alive. I’m so thankful that you are alive, Bucky, I love you. I love you. God how I love you. It burns inside me all the damn time. I’ve never not loved you. Never. There isn’t a piece of me that doesn’t love you, that doesn’t choose you.  I never thought those words would get to come out of me again, Buck, not since I woke up. Writing them and knowing you’re going to see them is so sweet to me. You’re so sweet to me. I love you. _

_ That’s a lot. I know it’s a lot but I can’t not say it. Write it and say it when I get the chance. I want to let everything out for you and so there it is. Here I am. I’m still me. I’m still your Stevie. I don’t ever want to be anything else. Just like you’re my Bucky. We’ve got stories to tell now, time and horrible things that have happened but we are still Steven and Rebecca, Stevie and Bucky. I know you. Still us. We can work our way back to the rest. That’s what I want to do. I wanna be honest, Buck, so that’s it. I’m staying away because you asked me to but this isn’t me giving up. This isn’t me accepting anything. This is me choosing you again and again and again. Like I’ll always choose you. Like I always have chosen you. You never forced anything on me that I didn’t want, Buck. You were just so much more brave than I was. I wanted to protect you and you wanted to protect everyone. Me, your brothers, our mothers. I just wanted to keep you safe. Everything was so hard back then and putting love into anyone seemed like such a risk. I focused all mine of you, you were just so right and easy and my Bucky, but you spread it around. You loved us all so hard. I just love you. _

_ That night, the night we had together after I was changed, of course I remember it. I think on it all the time. Even before, when I couldn’t even face up to asking what had happened to you, back when I thought you must have passed on like all the others from back when we come from, I thought on it. I’d wake up from dreaming about it.  I don’t remember you being in awe, Buck. Or if you were, we both were. Even then we were changing, both of us. Everyone was, I suppose, but to me, it only really matters that we were. _

_ I do remember your hands and they way they’d held mine. The way you’d used them to learn me again. I’ll do that this time, if you’ll ever let me. I’ll use my hands that might not be the ones from when I was a boy but still, they’ve touched you, held you. They’re yours like every piece of me is. These are hands that you have seen and held in your own. I’ll use them to learn you again, help you learn yourself. Please, don’t think that this changes anything between us. Your body - I loved your body like I loved your mind and your heart and your soul - is still yours. I’ll love it for the sole fact it belongs to you. Don’t doubt that. _

_ I don’t want to scare you, so I won’t talk on that any more. Not now. I understand that you want to keep some distance between me and you and that’s okay. That’s okay. As long as I know you are out there, Buck, god you’re so close to me now. I can handle being away from you. I could live off the knowing that you are alive. _

_ I’m sorry but I don’t have the letters. I kept them on me all the time back in the War. Everywhere I went, they came too. I had them tied with the ribbon you used to use for your hair back when we were both still in school. The red one that your Pop got you. It had frayed and wasn’t so much red anymore but I kept it, stole it from your house before I shipped out for Basic. We had so few things that we didn’t need and I wanted to take something of you with me. Everything else I couldn’t stand to take, thinking maybe that if things got worse you’d need it. I had them and the picture your Momma sent me. The one of you in your uniform. It used to sit in my compass - I had it all folded up so it would fit. You’re hat was half cut off but I used to stare at your face all the time. I was so damn proud of you, Buck. I was damn angry, too, when you finally told me. Afraid for you and what might happen to you. That’s maybe why I didn’t see the hidden things you weren’t saying in your letters. Didn’t want to. I wanted to think you were back home, safe, maybe not happy but safe. I knew you’d miss me but I never thought you’d follow me. But that’s not really what you did, not really. I know you said that’s why you did it, signed up and shipped out with the Army Nurse Corps, but it’s not. The War made you burn like it did me. I remember the way we both had been trying to find a way to deal with what we felt for years, both of us trying to work out how we could be useful. You wanted to help people and you had a way to do it. It was such a good thing to do, Bucky. I never told you that. _

_ You were so brave. I wrote to your Momma, just after you first told me. I was worried she’d think I was angry at her for going along with your story, for agreeing to keep me in the dark and send my letter on to you. I said to her all that I couldn’t say to you. How proud I was. How much I was in awe by your spirit and that fire that you always had. She was too, though I bet she didn’t waste no time in letting you know that. Everyone was. _

_ But the letters - the picture - went into the water with me. Nothing was there when I came out. I’m sorry. I’d liked to have had them with me all the time now as well. To have something more than the memories. We can make more now, though. Keep these letters, each of us keeping what the other writes. It’s a feeling like holding a piece of you in my hands when I read your letter. I hope it feels a little like that for you. _

_ I didn’t ask about James or Robert. I didn’t ask about anyone connected to you. I’m sorry for that but it, it felt like the only thing I could do at the time. When I first woke up I wanted to pretend that maybe you were out there living, happy, somewhere. Stupid, now. When I heard about what happened, about you being taken, well, then I just couldn’t face up to the memory of them. I’m sorry they’re gone. Sorry that the War took so much from your family. Your poor Momma. _

_ You said you think we’ve both had more time than anyone has a right to ask for. Do you think that really? I don’t. I feel like we’ve had no life at all, Bucky. Nothing. Not a minute that wasn’t about struggle and fighting and trying hard to just survive. That’s what it was like for us growing up. I was so sick all the time it felt like and you were trying too hard to be strong for every god damn person you knew. It felt like time was against us from the very beginning. Your Pop. My Ma. God, we were born screaming and we never got a chance to stop. Then the War. Then - well, you know better than me what we’ve both had since then. We should be screaming for more time. I am. Inside I’m shouting at the top of my lungs. Now that I’ve got you again, now that I know you’re still here and alive, I won’t accept anything but more time. More and more and more of it. I want as much as this world has. I want all of it. For us but mostly for you. You deserve nothing but time, Bucky. Please, please believe that.   _

_ I’m glad you are with Tony. I know he’s a good man and he’ll keep you safe. I’m glad you found your way to him. I don’t blame him for anything. He’s done more for me than I deserve. He still is. Do you stay in the Tower? I never stayed there, Tony offered after New York but I didn’t take him up on it. Is it just the two of you? Who is Peter? You mentioned him but I can’t think of anyone I know of Tony knowing called Peter. _

_ My team - Sam, Clint, Natasha, Wanda, the others - they are my kind of people. Not like you are. No ones my kind of person like you are, Bucky. But they’re my friends. They’ve made the future easier to take. I hope you’ve found people that do that for you. Tony, he does understand me in a way the others don’t. I think maybe he sees past everything that is Captain America and just sees Steve Rogers. And like you said, I’m a punk. I hope one day you want to meet them. You’ll like them all. Clint probably more than the rest. He makes me think on you alot. He cares like you do. _

_ Snap my cap - God, Buck. Parts of your letter made me so choked up and other parts made me so happy. That made me laugh, honest to God laugh. I’ve not heard anyone say that since Brooklyn. You’re right though, I’m not easy. I’m still not easy. I’ve made messes and hurt people but I’m trying to make it better. I love you. I love you I love you I love you. I’ll keep loving you for always. _

_ Keep writing to me. Tell me anything you want. Tell me everything. _

_ Until the end of the line, _

_ Your Stevie _

Once she has fully read it through, Bucky puts it down and smooths it hard to go flat against the table. She uses her right hand to hold it and her left curls into a fist. Her eyes watch as her skin covers over the words, the blue ink that forms words in slanted lines. She wants to count them. Count how many words he’s given her. How many times he tells her  _ I love you.  _ She wants to rub the tip of her thumb over each  _ love.  _ Maybe, just maybe, if she pushes down hard enough she’ll actually feel something pushing back at her.

It’s a good letter. It’s so Steve there is no doubt, not that she had any to begin with, that it comes from him. Tony wouldn’t have given it to her unless he got it from Steve, unless he knew for sure it was from him. It seems like the way she remembers him, though, that’s what her brain is trying to wrap around. The words sound like him in her head. It makes her believe, just a little more.

“Friday?”

“Yes, Rebecca,” Friday answers quickly. She’d been waiting for her to speak then. Probably told by Tony to keep an eye on her. Alert him if she headed for the kitchen knives.

That makes her scoff. “I’m fine,” she tells them both, knowing that it’s more for Tony’s benefit than Fridays. “Can you help me order some ribbon?”

“Absolutely,” comes the retort, Friday suddenly sounding much more upbeat.

It’s rare that Bucky asks her for anything and if so, it’s not worded like she just did. Not a joint effort. It’s hard to deal with something that’s so far past her understand. An AI. Tony had tried to explain it all to her, Peter too, but the whole concept goes over her head a little when actually confronted with Friday. She seems so human even without a body, without a face to speak at. She gets annoyed and that’s the most human thing Bucky can think of.

There is one of the slim computer pad things that Tony keeps dumping in her space sitting just down the breakfast bar. It lights up, that bright blue white light that all of the screens Tony likes to use shining up and out at her. Before she can talk herself out of it Bucky stretches out and grabs it, pulls it to sit in front of her. She doesn’t put it down yet, holding it up in her left hand while her right pushes Steves letter off to the side a bit. Not far away, close enough that she can still see it. Still touch it, easily. Different things flick past of the screen and Bucky tries to watch, to track what’s happening but honestly, she isn’t trying too hard. This is about focusing on something else just enough to keep her mind thinking. She doesn’t really want to learn.

“Any particular colour, Rebecca?” Friday asks, her voice echoing in the kitchen, suddenly louder in her excitement. “You’ve been sticking to the blues - Navy, a firm favourite - but there are lots more options.”

“Red,” she mumbles in reply, eyes still on the screen. This time she does watch as the screen in front of her shifts, moves from a scrolling list of many many coloured ribbons to a stream of red. Blood red, the red of a rose, pinky reds, orange tinged reds. Lots and lots of choice. “There,” she snaps, sudden, and lets her finger reach out and stab out at the one she means. “That one.” It’s not the same as the one she had gotten from her Pop and that’s good. She doesn’t want a substitute. This is something new.

“Okay,” Friday tells her, quieter, closer to her normal volume now. “It’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have it sent to your room.”

“Thank you, Friday.” She means it.

“Can we look for more?” The question is said even quieter than her comment about the delivery had been and Bucky squirms in her seat, suddenly thinking of Peter and little Eddie. Friday’s still young, Tony told her that not too long after she moved in. He’d been trying to explain her fascination with helping Bucky to learn about technology and maybe he’d been responding to the unease Bucky felt whenever the AI spoke just to her.

“I don’t need anymore ribbons,” she replies. She doesn’t. Kindness, though, doesn’t cost anything. She did want to be distracted after all. “We could maybe look for something else, though. A gift for Peter or maybe at some books. This,” she tilts her head at the book that’s sitting to her left knowing Friday can see, “isn’t really my cup of tea.”

“Books are easy,” Friday calls out, the screen already moving and flowing into a stream of different genres for her to choose from. “A gift for Mr Parker, that could be a challenge. We’ll do that next. So - what type of book? Are you still working through the list Boss gave you?”

Bucky can’t help it. She chuckles a little and it’s not unkind, she thinks Friday would be smiling with her if she could. It’s a good way to spend the rest of her afternoon.

They buy four books - the last  _ Rebecca _ was added on Fridays say so - and search for over an hour for something for Peter before Bucky gives up and admits defeat. She can see from the windows that it’s late afternoon now and she has things she wants to do before dinner.

“Can you all Peter for me, Friday, please?” She asks once the light of the tablet has gone and nothing but her own reflection stares back at her in flat glass. ‘Schools over, right?’

“Yes, they let out twenty minutes ago. Calling Mr Parker,” Friday states, her voice disappearing and being replaced by ringing. The sound fills the air around her and Bucky lets herself move, gathering up her letter and slipping it back into the envelope.

“Hello? Friday? Is everything alright?”

“It’s me, Peter,” Bucky answers with apology in her tone. She always forgets how worried Peter gets by phone calls from Friday. She doesn’t have any other way to do it though. “How are you? How was school?” Distract him, she thinks.

“Great, yeah, good. And hi!” He chirps back at her. She has to actually bite her lip to stop the smile at that. He’s so young. She’s always surprised by how young he is, each and every single time. “How are you, Mr- Becca? Becca. Hows Mr Stark?”

“Good, both good. You have time to come for dinner? I know you’ll be having it with your aunt,” she assures him, not wanted him to think he has to come straight over. “After I mean.” Two dinners is actually more than a good thing for Peter. Tony’s explained how much the boy needs to be eating.

“Sure! That actually sounds amazing,” he replies, honest as always. Bucky can hear that yes, to him it is amazing. “Can I bring anything? Like, cookies?”

Laughing Bucky starts walking away from the kitchen as she replies, knowing that there isn’t a place in the penthouse where Friday won’t pick up her voice to sent to Peter. “Nothing. We’re having Italian.”

“Great. I love Italian.  Fettuccine Alfredo. Yup, great. I’ll, eh,” Peter pauses and Bucky just knows what's coming before it does. Jesus, this kid. “I’ll, just, ya know, swing by. On my way Upstate.”

“Great, Peter,” she laughs back and then looks up and waits for that sound that means Friday has cut the connection. “Fettuccine Alfredo for Peter, Fri, and can you tell Tony?”

“Already done.”

Great. Now comes the hard part. After the pardons had come through she had hummed and put it off and just avoided Tony when it came to the whole idea of writing to Steve. The thought of actually doing it, sitting down and putting a pen to paper, letting her thoughts about Steve, her thoughts  _ for  _ Steve just come out had been so frightening. Bucky walks a tight line, now. Her brain is a dangerous place and she can get lost in it easily, start on a path that she thinks is straight but instead just leads her in circles that she can’t always escape from. Stevie, he, he leads her to circles more often than not. It’s why she let herself and Friday get swept up, why she stopped her hands from rubbing the paper until there wasn’t a trace of it left. She knows she has to watch out for the traps that lie in wait for her in her own head now. She knows it would be a special kind of cruel that she can’t be with the people she cares about to leave Stevie waiting though. Waiting for a reply, any acknowledgement. So she won’t.

  
  



	5. Chapter Fiver

The room is dark when Steve jolts awake. The only light coming from the far off compound lights, their blue hue adding to the grey that’s settled over the space, his space, while he slept. It’s unnatural looking. Unsettling and it’s not helping him shake off the dream that pushed him awake. It’s the same one he has almost every night. It’s been torturing him for so long Steve almost doesn’t know what to do with the shift.

He’s on the Valkyrie, Red Skull dead behind him and Peggy on the radio. He’s listening to her and keeping one eye on the ice he’s heading into and the other on Bucky. Her picture. It’s peaceful. He wants to go. Wants to let it all go. Stop fighting. He can tell that’s what the ice is - an ending. Then he starts to hear it, soft at first and then louder and louder until it’s Bucky screaming at him. Screaming for him.  _ Stevie. Steve, please. Don’t leave me. Steve!  _ He doesn’t change course. He could - something in his knows there’s a choice for him here - but he doesn’t. Keeps going for the peace and quiet. Keeps going to the end.  _ Please, don’t leave me. Steve. Please. You promised. ‘Til the end of the line. Stevie. _

This, Bucky screaming and crying and calling for him goes on and on until something in him can’t take it anymore and his brain pushes him to wake up. He’s always cold when he does. Not in his skin but in his heart, his insides.

Now is the first time he wakes up though and he knows that Buck’s alive. That she’s safe. That’s the shift. Usually he’d be panting for air and cowering under his sheets. But…Bucky is alive. She’s alive and she had written to him. He has words from her - words on a page, yes, but still words - that aren’t cries for him. He might get to hear her say his name again. That helps, warms him more than he probably deserves. It’s enough to get him up, though, shooting a glance at the clock. It’s just past eleven. He knew it was stupid to go to sleep so early but he hadn’t slept yesterday at all. Usually that’s not anything for him but he’s more than man enough to admit he’s not been running at his peak. Not for months - maybe even years - now. Still, there ain’t any point of lying here now. Sleep won’t come to him again for a while. He can’t ever get back to sleep after the dream but maybe, hopefully, with this new knowledge his brain might let go again. Let him grab a few more hours at least. It’s not just the missions that he needs his wits for here. Steve had forgotten a little what it’s actually like, the reality of the day to day they used to live. Rhodes hadn’t scheduled anything for after the morning workout but there still was stuff to get done. Meetings. Medical checks. Lunch. More meetings. He’d called it at day after that, missing dinner in favour of catching up on some sleep. He’d been ragged enough looking that none of them argued with him on it.

His door opens with a click and the artificial light of the corridor burns his eyes for a second until he adjusts, stepping out and pulling the door closed behind him. It’s a bit of a walk to the communal kitchen, down the long corridor that houses all of their rooms. It curves slightly, almost unnoticeable really if you didn’t know and look for it, following the curve of the building itself. When Tony had shown him the lay out it had touched something that had long since gone cold in Steve. They’d all had nicely labelled out rooms on the blueprint, all laid out one after the other in the centre of the compound. A corridor that was completely enclosed on one side and their windows all looking out onto the centre garden area. They were as far away from the hub of activity that the conference rooms and offices represented. The rooms were at the centre,  _ the heart,  _ of the building. Enclosed, safe. Steve had offered to take the one at the end that had  _ Vision  _ printed neatly in the font Tony always used for this type of thing. It looked like real handwriting. Steve had always appreciated the personal touch of it. The extra distance to walk didn’t mean anything to him and it didn’t seem right sticking the new guy out in the back like that. So he has a ways to walk to reach the double doors that separate their corridor from the rest of the space they’d all shared back then. He’s just under half way, his steps quiet as he passes silent doors, when the double doors are pushed open and a man enters, his back quickly turning to Steve so he can focus on closing the doors with as little sound as possible. A man in the Spider-Man suit, the smooth lines of it marred only by the bulging backpack he has on.

“Please, Mr Stark,” he -  _ Spider-Man - _ is whispering. “It was nothing. Nobody saw. I was hungry and I’m here now. Like the fettucine was the bomb but I’m a growing boy. Need my vitamins. Minerals. All that. Karen’s told you I’m here now, right? I’m on my way to my room.” He’s speaking quick but still quiet, his back still to Steve as he now lets his mask covered forehead thump against the door. “Two,” another pause and then a sigh. “No, Mr Stark. It’s not for junk food runs.”

Steve had stopped his movements when he saw the kid come through and now he starts going again, steps still quiet but loud enough that he’s heard. Spider-Man turns to fully face him then, spine snapping straight and those eyes of the mask adjusting to as they settle on him. They remind Steve of the camera’s he’s seen Sam use, the len zooming in and out, compensating for distance.

“Mr Stark, I gotta go,” he rushes out sounding a little horrified and Steve realises that there is no phone like he’d assumed. They - Tony and this Spider-Man - are talking through a comm in the suit. Of course. “Come on, man,” he whines, slumping a little in a way that screams teenager even to Steve. Yeah, kid is right.

Steve fights a smile but decides to just let it show, let the kid see it with those camera eyes of his, as he stops right in front of him.

“I promise,” the kid answers to Tony and Steve saves a moment to wish he could hear the other end of this one sided conversation. Tony and a teenager. That’s a mix if ever he heard of one. “Come on, please. Don't make me say it...No, no - I...Okay. I promise not to leave the compound,” another sigh before he carries on and Steve is full on smiling now. “Not once this weekend. Not until Happy comes on Sunday. If I do, you get to tell Aunt May….And….Yeah, okay, and no more sleepovers.”

There’s a beat of silence then when both of them stand there, the kid letting his head drop down and Steve has to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. Poor kid. This was not something his mind could have dreamed up happening once he left his room.

“You still hungry?” he asks after the beat taking pity on the kid. His head snaps up and those eyes adjust on him again as two red covered hands reach up to grab on to the straps of his backpack.

“Hey, Sir, um, Captain Rogers. Sir.”

“Steve,” he tells him, taking pity again. “From Brooklyn,” he adds with a smile. “Queens, right?”

The kid laughs at that, fingers flexing against the straps as his head, Jesus, his entire body bounces in a happy nod. “You remembered that.”

“Kind of hard to forget. It isn’t often someone manages to get the Shield off me. Or goes for my legs.” Even through the mask Steve can tell the way the kid goes sheepish at that. His fingers stop flexing and go still. His lense eyes stop flickering, too. It’s a strange stillness that doesn’t seem to extend to the rest of him which seems to cave in on itself a little at that. Like the kid is trying to make himself small. Smaller. “Hey, no hard feelings. You did what you need to do.”

It’s the first time he’s spoken to someone who was on the other side about the fight in the airport. It seems almost fitting somehow that it’s Spider-Man. What he says is the truth though. There are no hard feelings on his side, especially not towards him. There’s guilt and sadness and regret but none of that belongs to the kid.

“So?” Steve tries again with a lighter tone. “Still hungry?”

“Oh, um, yeah. Yes?” the kid asks, clearly looking for some sort of right answer here. “I’ve got candy and like, so, so many chips in my bag if you wanna,” he jerks his head over his left shoulder then, indicating the bag, “maybe share.”

“I was thinking more a sandwich,” Steve admits in reply, taking a step forward and forcing the kid to sidestep a little to avoid a collision. “If you want, I can make you one, too.”

Steve doesn’t wait for an answer, just keeps moving and pushes his way through the door. It doesn’t shut, no click, so he knows that he’s followed him through and that’s good. Yeah, definitely good. They’re gonna be teammates now and it’s clear that Spider-Man isn’t comfortable around him. This might help. He’s probably fine with Rhodes and Vision but Vision, as far as Steve knows, still isn’t back. So tomorrow the kid’ll be faced with a lot of new people - not new, but the less said about that the better.

The first Steve hears of him is the thump of what he assumes is the backpack hitting the ground and the slide of one of the chairs at the table against the floor. His back is too the table, his head buried in the refrigerator as he pulls out cheese, ham and lettuce. There’s more there but Steve is hungry enough that he doesn’t have the patience to build a feast. The lettuce is for Spider-Man’s benefit too.

“Mustard? Mayo?” He asks as he pulls out the bread and a knife. He keeps his back to the kid and his eyes on the task at hand, giving him some time to settle down.

There’s the clearing of a throat and then the shuffle of fabric covered feet against the floor before he gets an answer. “Um, both, please. Mr - Captain Rogers. Sir.”

“Steve,” he corrects again with a smile that the kid can’t see.

“Okay. Yeah, i can do that.  _ Steve _ .”

His name is choked out, high pitched and again Steve doesn’t bother to fight the smile. He does wonder while he builds their late night snack just how young this kid is. Spider-Man he calls himself but that doesn’t really mean much. He seems young but, most people do to Steve. Youth is different now, much longer and more free than it was in his time. It skues his perceptions of age and so it’s probably best he just waits until he’s told, or the kid is comfortable enough around him that he feels he can ask. A question for another time.

The kid’s right where he knew he would be when Steve turns around, a plate in each hand and two bottles of water tucked into the crook of his arm. He’s got the mask off now - Steve didn’t hear him do that, fuck, this guy is quiet - and is looking anywhere but at Steve now that he’s walking towards them. That’s good, gives him the chance to study the kid as he walks over, sits the plates down and takes the seat directly across from him. He doesn’t look as young as he sounds. He doesn’t look too young at all if you ignore the wild fluff of hair and the pink flush on his cheeks.

“Have at it,” Steve tells him, sitting both their waters down too and jutting his head out at the kid.

They’re quiet while they eat, the only noise the sounds of eating and the weird friction that the fabric of the kids suit makes as he fidgets his seat. He seems incapable of sitting still, everything about him in motion. His eyes don’t settle on anything long and Steve has the thought that maybe Tony had drawn inspiration from that as well as the kids namesake when he designed the eyes of the suit. The seem to flick, zoom, search, just constantly move around.

He finishes before Steve - doesn’t everyone? - and sits, moving constantly in his seat and looking about until Steve takes his last bite. Suddenly the kid doesn’t restrict his movements to shuffling and the like anymore, reaching down with his left arm and pulling his backpack up and onto the table. He’s quick about it but still takes the care to push his plate back with his right arm, not careless but its clear he’s not really thinking about it. Steve just watches it all and doesn’t say anything, leaning back a little in his seat and letting his arms cross and fingers link behind his head. The sound of the zip opening is loud in the room and it seems to stall the kid a little, gets him looking at Steve for the first time without the mask.

“I, a,” he starts and then just lets himself trail off, that pink flush rising to his cheeks again. Steve watches it as it does, watches the way it seems to come all the way up from the edges of where his suit lies against his neck and goes all the way to under his eyes. Watches as it takes over his whole face.

God, had he ever been that young? Steve knows he must have been, probably was just as shy and stumbling as this Spider-Man if not worse but it seems like more than a lifetime ago. More than even his lifetime ago. He brings his hands down, annoyed with himself that he even did it. Looked so relaxed when clearly the kid isn’t. It’s cruel, a little. He’s got the weight of an unrealistic legend sitting behind him and that’s not counting the airport. Instead he lets the fall to the table, his too big fingers pulling the kids plate and stacking in on top of his before the still.

“You should get some sleep,” Steve tells him, hands moving again to lift the plates as he stands. “I’ll get these cleaned up and see you in the morning.”

“No! No, um, please,” the kid tries, his own hands moving again to, digging in the pack. Steve can hear the crinkle of what he guesses are the bags of chips that were mentioned earlier. “I have something for you.”

“For me?” His disbelief is clear in his voice.

“Yeah,’ the kid nods, hands still digging and now he’s looking into the bag, his whole head bent down over it. “Just a sec, it’s in here. I just gotta,” more crinkling, “There! Got it.”

It turns out to be an envelope. The same as the one he had slipped into his go bag just before he went to sleep. This one is not as crisp, there’s what looks like a grease stain on the back that Steve can see but it’s the same. Definitely the same.

“Where did you get that?” he asks, voice sharp as he drops the plates back to the table and clenches his hands at his side. He has control enough not to let them fist up but it’s a close thing.

The kid is holding it with the front facing himself, both red clad hands holding on to it lightly as he looks up at Steve. It makes him seem even more small, this change in their positions. “From Mr Stark,” he answers.

He says it like a question and Steve knows that the kid is lying. He did not get it from Tony. He got it from Bucky. Steve is as sure of that as he has been about anything, ever. This kid saw Bucky and she gave him the letter but he, or Bucky, don’t want Steve to know what. Why? Why hide that? What’s the use in that?

“Can I have it, please?”

“Yeah, of course, yeah. It’s yours,” the kid tells him, letting go of it with his left hand and using the right to hold it up and out at Steve.

The grain feels the same against his fingers when he takes it. ‘Thank you,” Steve answers and he means it no matter how devastated his voice sounds. He just doesn’t understand why he doesn’t get the truth.

“Welcome.”

Steve doesn’t reply to that, instead watching as the kid closes up his bag and then lifts up the mask that had been sitting on the table. He nods a goodbye, looking at Steve for a long moment before he takes them both and heads through the door that leads to the rooms. Steve doesn’t look at the letter in his hand until the doors have shut again and he’s alone. He turns it over so he can see the  _ Stevie  _ he had hoped would be written there and then sits it down. Gentle. So gentle. He won’t go until he cleans up the mess, two plates needing washed and the bottles put in the recycling. It gives him time to think, to get over this hurt that’s sudden and sharp. He shouldn’t be, neither the kid nor Bucky really owe him anything. She’d written to him. It’s only Saturday - barely, really, and he’s got a reply when Steve had resigned himself to waiting until Monday at the earliest. Buck has replied, quick and that’s good. That’s great, more than really, but still. Why the lie? It’s not the kid, he doesn’t think. From what little he’s seen lying doesn’t seem like his MO. So it’s Bucky. It’s such a small thing to lie to him about and Buck and him, they never, not ever, used to lie to one another. 

They never used to do a lot of things. Steve never used to be Captain America. Bucky never used to get tortured by Hydra.

Steve knows his movements are harsh, violent, as he moves about the kitchen and then as he makes his way back to his room. Everything gets more force than it needs expect the letter. He’s gentle with it, gentle like he wants to be with Buck. This is as close as he can get just now. The click as his door closes seems overly loud in the space, like it’s echoing not just of the bare walls but off the inside of his skull too. There is too much empty room in there, too much space for thoughts that aint gonna help him none if they take root. He’s angry and that’s not fair, not right. It just is. Reading Bucky’s letter angry isn’t want he wants to do but he also knows he isn’t a man cold or hard enough to have her words in his hands and not read them. Not gorge himself on any trace of her that she lets him have.

The bed is still unmade from his sleep earlier. The sheets rumbled down at the bottom and two of the pillows thrown carelessly to the floor. He only sleeps with one, something that Tony had seemed to think was ridiculous. It had been a miracle he’d managed to limit the man to three. They had playfully argued about it, back and forth even after Tony left to go back to New York. Steve picks one of them up and puts it against the headboard, piles it with the other that he’d put his head on to sleep, before he kicks his trainers off. Remembering the way he’d felt after reading the first letter, the way his body had felt so tired, drained and sore in a way he hasn’t felt in so long, he pulls his t-shirt over his head as well. All this is done with just the one hand, the other holding on to the fancy envelope the whole time. He doesn’t want to let it go, no matter how he knows this, undressing, settling down, would go quicker if he did. The contact is important. The light is still the blue-grey, dark enough that the room feels small but light enough to read by. She’s used black ink this time, the black stark against the white paper.

There’s no  _ Stevie,  _ no  _ Steve,  _ nothing. No greeting. She just dives straight it, pushes him in too.

 

_ I wasn’t sure you would write me back. I’m glad you did, surprised and it was almost a hurt when I first saw your letters spelling out my name, but it’s a good hurt. One that helps you remember where you are. Not the bad kind of hurt that you get when you think on someone that’s - just, good. So, thank you, for writing me back, and I’ll keep writing as long as you keep replying. I know you have to be busy, more now that you’re back at the training place, so don’t rush it. You must have written me as soon as you finished with my letter. That’s nice, Steve, sweet and kind but you don’t need to. I can wait. We’ll both have to wait, sometimes. You have responsibilities that I don’t want you letting slip just to write to me.   _

_ I’m not gonna speak on a lot of what you said. I don’t know how to speak about the things you put down. Mostly I don’t even know what to think about them either. I feel bad about that. You said you want to be honest and open and that’s good, Steve, I appreciate that and I would give it back to you if I could. But I’m sorry I can’t do that yet. Maybe I can’t do that ever. So I’ll be honest in the ways I can be.Your letter was good. It was like speaking to Tony about you. It was the real you - the one I remember. Not just you knowing things, either. Just - it just sounded like you. _

_ I don’t talk about growing up or the War or anything with anyone. There doesn’t seem to be a point to it. No one knows what I’m talking about and though I know Tony tries, he can’t ever really understand. I know that you do. There are movies and shows and books, everything you could possibly imagine about what the War but none of it has let anyone understand really. It was like that, wasn’t it? Like screaming all the time. Silent but screaming hard. I don’t know if I was brave or if I was like you want to paint me. I was selfish - still am. I just wanted to be able to live. Living meant make sure you and the boys and our mothers did too. There wasn’t any point unless we all did it together. _

_ Do you know that Howard did away with all record of me? I’m guessing you do. That hurt me, a little, when I heard about it. Not because it meant no one was looking for me or because I want to be remembered as someone great. That - the first - is why Tony thought I was upset. Just, I wish there had been something for my family. Momma and Eddie. It would have just been the two of them and they - I don’t know. I just wish they would have had an answer about me. Tony said there isn’t anything about what Howard or whomever told them. He said it’s not something he can see Howard having worried about. That’s sad, don’t you think? You wrote her that you were proud of me and maybe that’s the last time anyone told her anything about me. Maybe that’s the last news my Momma heard on me. At least it was something good. Came from you. She sent you that picture of me, too, so she didn't even have that. Not even a picture. I can’t think of any of me she would have had since I was a babe. It’s okay that you don’t have the letters, it was just a thought. Even if they hadn’t been with you when you went into the ice they wouldn’t be here now. Howard was thorough. I didn’t like him, I didn’t even back then. We only met twice but I just couldn’t warm to him. He was helping me and you and still I couldn’t think good on him. _

_ I was thinking about when I learnt with your Ma earlier. She used to be so tired after her work at the hospital but she always made time for me. Always answered the questions I had about veins and the right way to wrap a bandage. She was a good woman. And my Pop. He was good, too. He always had a smile for everybody. Never had nothing bad to say about anyone and do you remember how quick he turned when people spoke about me and you? How he used to tip his head and tell them to mind their own. Even after all this time I still feel like he hung the moon. He worked so hard. I didn’t realise until he’d gone just how hard he must have been working to keep us all going. If anyone deserved more time it was them, our parents or my brothers. Two of them died in that godforsaken Hell. No matter where they died, it was still bullets and bombs that got ‘em. Not old age. Not something that got them sick. I know you want me to want more, more time, more life but I’ve been alive so long already. Half alive, really. But still. Even taking all that away we have lived so much more than our families got, Stevie. Don’t ask me to want anything more when people who deserve it so much more didn’t even see anything but hard work and suffering. _

_ That doesn’t mean I don’t think you should have more time. Look at all you have done! God, Steve. You have saved the world more than once. You’re a superhero. You fought invading aliens. This is a world that you’ve helped to shape - even when you were frozen, you’re legacy was helping shape it. It might not be really you, this Captain America that the world dreamed up while you slept, but it’s born from you. No one can ignore just how strong you are now, Stevie. _

_ Aliens! I wonder what you were thinking, then. Could you believe it? I met Schmidt once, just after I was taken from the field hospital, so I know you’d seen and fought things that shouldn’t be real before the aliens. But still, when I read about it I couldn’t believe my eyes. Real, honest to God aliens. They make me think about Friday. Not that she’s an alien, gosh no. She is alien to me, though. I’m not sure how much she has to do with the compound but she’s everywhere here at the Tower. She’s something else. An artificial intelligence. I was afraid of her to begin with, no matter what Tony and Peter told me about her. She’s so much like a person. That’s what got me over my fear in the end. She’s just like a little girl in some ways. But to answers you, yes I stay at the Tower with Tony and Friday. It’s just us. No one else really comes over apart from Jim and Peter. I met Peter on my way to finding Tony. He’s helping settle me in to the future, maybe he’s one of those people that make it bearable for me like your friends do for you. You know Jim. He’s a good friend to Tony but I think his work with the Avengers keeps him away from here more than either of them would like. Whenever he comes, Jim, he laughs and laughs at Tony and me. He tells me that I’m Tony’s karma catching up to him. _

_ You are the only person alive that knows how hard I can be sometimes. How difficult I can be. Tony gets all of that now. It’s just the two of us living here and he’s the only connection I really have to this new time. Without him I don’t know where I would be. No, I do. Back with Hydra. He’s great with me and I’m glad you know he is a good man. He’s the best. We’re friends, more than that really and I care for him more than I can really explain to you, Stevie. He just, he’s so hard on himself all the time. And I know this might not be fair - I don’t know everything and you owe me nothing - but please, try and make things easier for him? He tries so so hard. I don’t know what goes on but I know that when he came back yesterday he was hurting like I haven’t seen him do in a long time. Maybe you are, too. Maybe you both hurt each other. I just, I couldn’t stand being in my own head if I didn’t at least try and get you to try to make things easy on him. _

_ You asked me to tell you everything. I don’t know what to say when you’ve given me something as open as that. I try and avoid big, open things. Questions, ideas, spaces. If I give my mind too much room to think it doesn’t do me good. I need to keep things tight. Closed in. Is it like that for you? Did your mind grow with your body? I don’t remember speaking about what the project did to you back when, it was something we just accepted. Ignored. You don’t need to tell me. _

_ That’s what I spend most of my time doing - keeping my mind busy. I read. Constantly. Tony has built me lots of shelves in my room and both him and Peter add to them every week. I just ordered some new books with Friday today. I used to read up on history from a file Tony modeled on the one Shield gave to you but I stopped after awhile. I hope you did as well. They were telling it so coldly. Harsh facts without anything else. Well - no, I thought they were pretty clear in their agenda. America the Great, right, Stevie? That’s what started me reading - after I gave up Tony had me listen to this song and it made me laugh, made it all seem a little less horrible. It mentioned The Catcher in the Rye. Mentioned lots of things but it reminded me that all of it had passed me by. Reading about it in that file had made me feel like all that awfulness was still happening. I suppose it is, just under a different name or in a different place. _

_ I’ve missed so much and I don’t even really want to know what it is exactly I did miss. Why learn? Why ask? None of it is good. None of it is anything like what we thought. All that death and suffering, all those boys I saw cut up and bleeding. There’s new boys doing it now. New blood spilling even while I write to you. People are always going to fight. I was stupid to think it would be any other way. _

_ Sorry, Stevie. This isn’t how I wanted things to come out. I’m not sure why I’m giving you all the sad angry disappointed parts of what I think. _

_ Tony calls me a moll sometimes. Can you believe it? Someone calls me a moll. I’ve always been your girl and can you think of anyone that would have called me that back home? I’m not sure he knows what it really means. Friday told me it means something different in some places now but he’s using it the way we would've. Makes me smile though. Me, a moll. You a gangster now, Stevie? _

_ I ordered a ribbon today to hold my letters from you. It’ll be here tomorrow. Perk of the future. _

_ Sleep well, Stevie. _

“Bucky,” Steve whispers into the quiet of his empty room. He lets the letter fall from his hands and onto his knees, the weight of it barely there on his skin. “Jesus, Bucky,” he whispers again and the end of it is muffled, not clear to the air as his hands rise and cover his face. Rub at his eyes hard.

This one is so different than the first. Still, the rush of knowing this Bucky is there, the joy in the sweet knowledge that she’s out there breathing and writing to him. There’s so much left unsaid though, so much that Steve can read between the slanted handwriting. She’s not happy. Not even close. There’s so much hurt there Steve doesn’t even know how or where to start with it. He’d forgotten she’s not been ‘awake’ near as long as he has. She’s not had the time, or the help, to adjust like he did. There’s so much he wants to ask her too. Schmidt? She’d seen him, she had written that and Steve can’t even begin to understand that. It’s sitting heavy in his brain, just a weight on sudden knowledge that he knows he has to get to grips with. For Bucky. He can’t kick and punch his way through this. He’s got nothing but the words he can put to paper for her. That’s the only way he has to fight against all the things that have happened to Bucky. That’s all he’s got and it feels like nothing at all. He folds the pages of her letter and places them back in their envelope. It joins the other in his bag, two sitting right on top of a pile of clothes, and Steve slips back into bed.


	6. Chapter Six

Despite the late night Steve is up before the rest the next morning, already settled at the table with the newspaper and a cup of coffee when they all start trickling in. He’s eaten - toast, eggs, more of that bacon from yesterday and a smoothie that was so green it looked toxic - so he just watches and listens, adds bits and pieces to conversations that start up around him while everyone makes their way to the common space. Clint is first, then Sam. Natasha follows not long after. Rhodes comes next and at first Steve is surprised to see him. It had just been them - the old them - yesterday and he hadn’t really thought about who else they would be sharing this common space with. Spider-Man last night should have been a clue, though. Vision and Wanda come next, both coming in at the same time, clearly together and they both look happy about it. By then it’s getting crowded round the table and he’s already eaten his fill so it’s only natural for him to be the one to get up and move to the seating area that sits at the opposite end of the room.

He feels the way Natasha and Clint watch him as he goes but Steve decides against paying it any mind, taking his paper with him and giving both Wanda and Vision a smile and a nod on his way over. Wanda reaches out to touch his arm when they pass, gives it a gentle squeeze hello that he’s come to expect from her. She tactile. They’d all gotten used to it after awhile.

The seats are comfortable and the rumble of conversation from behind him only adds to that sense of comfort. It’s like reliving a slice of the peace he had managed to find here before. The paper in his hands isn’t actually being read, it’s more of a prop. Something that’s normal for him and normal for his friends to see. Keep them off his back. He’s fine, not great, not anything close to great, but he’s okay. The things bothering him - Bucky, suffering and struggling and alone in a way that nobody can really fix - aren’t anything they can help. Steve doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to share it. Doesn’t even really think he’d want their help even if they could. He’s the one that is gonna help this. This - whatever is in the letters both him and Bucky send - feels private. He hasn’t had anything like that in so long and it doesn’t seem like Buck would have either.

The door opens again and Steve watches as Spider-Man comes through. And it is Spider-Man. The kid is in the suit, mask and all. Steve has positioned himself just right, eyes on the door and with his left side facing the kitchen and all the people gathered there. He watches as the kid pauses for a beat and then squares himself. Gets his body to be as big as it can before he heads into the kitchen. Good for him, Steve thinks. He’d worried that whatever it was that had happened between them the night before might have frightened the kid, might have made him feel unwelcome or any number of other things. He’s glad it hasn’t. Steve doesn’t need that to add to his list of worries or regrets. For once, being the one looking after the team is the last thing on his mind.

“Kid,” Rhodes calls out in greeting, clearly having spotted him as well. “I thought I was gonna have to drag your ass out of bed. This ain’t no summer camp.”

It’s said in jest and the kid clearly knows that if his startled little laugh is anything to go by. It’s the only noise in the room. Everyone has gone quiet at this new arrival. “Oh, sorry, Colonel Rhodes. I, um,” he stutters out, footsteps stopping too. “I didn’t know what time I -”

“He’s kidding, kid.” Clint interjects and Steve turns round fully to watch as Sam stands up and pulls out his seat, a nod of his head offering it out. “Don’t listen to nothing he’s got to say and don’t call him Colonel Rhodes, makes the rest of us look bad. Sam’s finished, you can eat here, yeah? There’s cereal and toast and eggs. You want eggs?”

“Don’t eat Clints eggs,” Wanda interjects with a smile, a spoonful of cereal stopped in mid air.

“Agreed,” Sam and Natasha say together and then everyone is laughing.

There’s no tension there. Good. Steve goes back to pretending to read the paper, turning the pages when he lets his brain have the space to remind him to do it. He’s thinking on everything that had come out of Buck letter. It’s a lot.

The file Tony found after the Hydra drop, the one Steve has tried very, very hard to forget about since the moment he saw it, made some things clear. He’s ignored these things, these facts, instead trying to focus on finding Buck and getting her away from them. He doesn’t think he can do that anymore. It’s not want Bucky needs and Steve has made a promise long since that he will try and be what she needs him to be. ‘Til the end of the line. This isn’t that. So he has to try. He has to understand.

Hydra took her from the field hospital she was working in. Bucky had always pushed to be near the front when she was given any option in it, that is something Steve knows without the file. It’s just what Bucky would have done. They had an agent in the camp - in most camps, in most everywhere. He caught sight of Howard visiting the camp, speaking to a nurse. That’s noted in the file - the first note. Subject placed under surveillance. Association with H.Stark. Nature unknown. Bucky had already been in their sights before Steve even thought of sneaking away to visit her.

She was meant to be a carrot. Something to use to control him. Steve refuses to think of how that would have worked, all the things he would have done in order to keep her safe. It’s not something he can bare to think on, not something he can stand to know about himself because he does know. He would do anything for her. Then, now, anytime. They didn’t get the chance though. They took Bucky and were smart enough to know that she’d be looked for. America couldn’t just let one of it’s daughter disappear. Steve knows they had looked - the soldiers around the area. It had been a big deal, back then. So she had to be kept hidden, that’s in the file too. Then it was too later to use her. Steve had gone into the ice and there wasn’t anything they could do about that. They didn’t know where he was anymore than Howard or Peggy or the US Army.

Hydra gave her the serum. Not his serum and not the Red Skulls. Something else. A mix of the two maybe, Steve doesn’t really know. What he does know is what was in the file. They’d experimented on POWs, Americans, British, Australians, Russians, any one they could get their hands on. None of those they tried it on had survived. They had orders to keep her alive, to keep her on the move. To not fight. Nothing was worth the risk of getting captured. It isn’t clear where the orders were coming from but they’re noted down, Steve remembers that. All other directives secondary to protection of subject. They don’t say when she gets it exactly, just a vague forty six written in the margins of the photocopied paper. They put her in cryo immediately after. The same day. It’s a test, one that even Steve could work out with his burning rage clouding his thoughts. There are lots of tests after that. Results that Steve hadn’t let himself really understand. He knows what it means - knows the black and white of it if not the shades of grey. If not the dirty details. They had tortured her. Done tests which meant hurting her over and over to see how long it took Bucky to heal. How much she could take before she fell into unconsciousness. How much it took to wake her up again after. There had been drugs listed, too. Over and over, the same results come up repeated so many times it had made Steve sick back when he first saw them. Not sick like people say now, actually sick. He’d just made it to Sam’s kitchen sink, Tony still sitting at the little kitchen table, Nat and Sam hiding away in the bedroom.

Then it all goes simple. Single lines and nothing else.

Subject entered into cryogenic status. Subject awakened for transport. Subject entered into cryogenic status. Subject awakened for transport.

Over and over and over. Dates listed beside each one, some months apart while others are years apart. They never leave her awake for long - days, a week at the most. They don’t want her awake.  It’s clinical. Cold. She, his Bucky, the very centre of everything that Steve has built himself on, is nothing to them. Subject. Nothing.

“You’ve not turned the page in awhile.”

The words startle Steve from his thoughts and back into the room. It’s Rhodes that said them, sitting on the sofa that’s just off from Steve’s chair, a perfect right angle between the two. Looking about Steve sees that everyone else has left the room and it’s just the two of them. The dishes are gone, the table tidy. Like no one was ever there at all.

“They’ve all gone to suit up,” Rhodes tells him clearly having tracked just what Steve was looking at. “No weapons, today anyway, but we need to get back into the swing of it. Wanda, Vision, the kid, everyone is here. That’s what we were waiting for. Time to get this show back on the road.”

“Not Tony,” Steve replies softly, looking at the man beside him to catch his reaction. There hasn’t been one yet but Steve isn’t stupid. Rhodes is Tony’s best friend and maybe more importantly, he respects Tony greatly. It’s obvious in the way they interact with one another. Steve can’t believe he’ll let whatever went down between them go without comment.

Rhodes just nods at that, looking peacefully back at Steve. “No, not Tony. You know where he is,” he’s told, calm still. Steve doesn’t say anything, there isn’t anything to say, but he imagines his face tells it all. Nothing would come out right, or, well, nothing would come out without his bitterness showing. He can’t stop his face though. Can’t hide the way his whole mouth twists. Rhodes sighs and Steve gets a lick of genuine pleasure at it. Yeah, get annoyed, come on. “This - all this, you can’t rush it. Things happened. Good things, bad things, just shit and that takes time to get past. Or to understand. You should give him time. Leave him be. Let him come to you. People need time, Steve. To process, to understand. Give them both time.”

“Fuck off.” It’s a snarl and Steve doesn’t feel bad about it, doesn’t even fucking care that he didn’t think before he said it. It’s right and he means it. He should fuck off. Tony, yes, Bucky, no. No. It had been building - nobody would have missed the hint of what the man was saying. Didn’t need the both added on in. “That ain’t your place,” he continues, Brooklyn thick on his tongue.

A nod and how dare he still look so calm, like Steve and his fury are nothing to him. “Maybe,” Rhodes hums, “maybe not. Doesn’t seem like it’s your place right now, either.”

“She’s my wife,” Steve shouts, pushing himself up and out of the seat with both hands on the armrests. His paper crumples under his feet as he takes two steps forward, puts himself right up in front of Rhodes. He hasn’t stood, hasn’t moved. That damn peaceful look is still on his face. His hands are still loose, one on his knee and the other laying on the sofa beside him. Like this is nothing. The eyes though, Steve can see he’s afraid. Good, that means he’s listening. “You don’t talk about things that don’t concern you, Jim. Buc- Rebecca is nothing, nothing to do with you. Tony, yeah, you fucking talk to me about Tony. It’d listen to that all day long. Don’t mention her. Don’t tell me what’s best. She’s nothing to you. Don’t,” he shakes his head, twice, hard. He’s so fucking angry and this needs to be understood. Now. “Don’t think you know me or her. Don’t think you know better than me what I should be doing. I know. I know! I don’t need you telling me what she needs, what my fucking wife needs. You think you know? I’ve - You think little day trips to the Tower give you any idea what she needs? What she’s been through? You think you understand - you have any single fucking idea of who she is? That you know better than me - that you have some - some right to speak for her.” Steve laughs then, a dark twisted thing that he hopes the man sitting in front of him understands. “You think you could have any idea?”

Steve takes a step back and turns, puts his back to the other man. He’s not a threat - not without his suit - and Steve’s truly concerned on what he might do if he has to keep looking at him. Has to watch as he keeps his cool, calm facade. He’s shaking. The whole of his body, jittering and bouncing, the muscles under his skin coiling and twisting, begging him to use them.  

The sound of the leg braces, that sound that Steve associates so strongly with Tony and the Iron Man suit, fills the suddenly dead quiet of the room. “Feel better? That help? Get it all out?” Rhodes shoots the questions out quick and still with that calm in his voice. Steve saw the fear though, the calm isn’t the whole story. “No answer? Fine, that’s fine, Rogers. I don’t need you talking.You just have to listen. So listen - that was a nice friendly piece of advice. I’m not assuming anything and I haven’t said a word that shouldn’t already be obvious to you. Suit up. Training outside in ten.”

It’s an order. Clear. Steve listens to the sound of the tech until it fades, cut off by the door that leads to their shared living space. He just stands, eyes on the cold grey of the wall opposite him. They’re the only still part of him, energy still bouncing under his skin. He’s furious. So fucking angry and hurt. So fucking guilty and this coming from Rhodes, no, that’s just too far.   His wife. His Bucky. Jesus, he can’t barely stand with it all.

He has too. He has to stand, take it all, feel it all. Steve has to be the solid ground. He will be it.

His gait is too quick as he walks to his room, passing the room that he knows belongs to Rhodes without even a glance. He can hear the others in their own spaces, changing, moving about, getting ready. Training. He can do that. Suit up, Rhodes had said. Suit up. Yeah, Steve doesn’t have a suit. Doesn’t have the shield. Not anymore. He has gear. Gear designed to move with his body, to not hamper his movements, to not slow him down. It’s familiar - this new suit. It is so much like normal he barely needs his mind to do it, barely needs a thought to get himself moving and changed and back out to the training area out at the back of the compound. He’s not the first nor the last. Steve knows how to work around this anger and guilt, he has done it now for years. It’s all about focus. Focus on the mission. Focus on task at hand. So training. That’s what he’s gonna do. It’ll fight and maybe, just maybe he’ll burn some of this out of himself.

He waits, off to the side and broadcasting his desire to be left that way in the line of his shoulders and the slant of his mouth, while Sam, Rhodes and Wanda filter in. It’s warm for the time of year, the trees that Steve can just see the tops of over the white building in front of him more orange than green, and the outside area Tony designed for them to train in is completely clear. No one but them in sight. No noise making it past the walls of the compound. No one speaks either, not even the kid who Steve can see getting more and more agitated by the tension off where he stand beside Vision.

“Right,” Rhodes calls as his face plate lifts up and the suit comes to a stop beside Natasha. “Hand to hand, basic stuff. We just need to get comfortable with it,” he states, eyes flicking over them all. He doesn’t miss out Steve where he stands separated from the rest and Steve watches as his mouth turns down a little and his brow furrows. Like he’s surprised by it, like he hadn’t just seem him furious minutes before.

“Pairings?” Natasha asks at the same time as Clint asks “Powers?”

“No powers, no weapons. So Clint, you’re with Scott. Nat, you take Wanda. Sam, you and me go with Vision. Steve you take Spider-Man.”

“No,” Steve states, quick and calm. He can control himself. “Not today, Rhodes,” he adds, looking at that man and trying to keep his eyes of the kid who he’d seen slump instantly when he’d spoken up. Not today. Not with how he’s wound so fucking tight. He can control his voice but maybe not his fists. “I’ll go with Vision.” Vision can take a hit.

“Steve -” Natasha starts, even takes a step towards him but she stops when she’s cut off.

“No debate. No discussion.”

“It’s, um,” the kid starts, “I’m strong.”

“He is,” Nat agrees, taking another step towards Steve.

“Fine,” he snaps back. Fine. If that’s what they all want, fine. He’ll just have to be in control.

They all split off - quiet and tense because of him. Steve doesn’t care enough to feel bad about it now. He will later, he’s sure of that, but not now. Now he doesn’t care about any of it. Rhodes can sort it out or go to Hell for all Steve cares. His stalking strides take him to the farthest point of the training area, the tree line not far off and the building distant. The others have spread out too, only the kid trailing out after him. And he is trailing, head down and bobbing slightly as he walks up to where Steve has stopped and turned to face him. He’s in his full suit still - red and blue and black against the plain black and grey that Steve sports. It makes him look young, the suit. Steve hadn’t thought that in Germany but he does now. Like a kid playing dress up.

“So.” He draws the word out and comes to a stop, clapping his covered hands together in a nervous slap. Steve spots the little circle things on the boys wrists, the black line that does into his palm and splits open into another smaller circle. The things he uses to shoot out that stuff, the webbing.

“No weapons,” Steve reminds him, nodding his head down to the hands that are now hanging loose at his sides. “Those things count.”

Dipping his head down and lifting his own hands, palms up, to look at them the kid seems surprised. “No, no, course. I won’t use ‘em. They just, like, come with the suit?”

“You’re asking me?” It sure sounded like a question.

“No,” the kid laughs, his body going slack when he does. “No I know they do. I just, sometimes forget that they’re a weapon. I don’t think of them like that. They just,” he shrugs, “help me get about.”

“Anything can be a weapon. I use a shield. That’s not a traditional weapon but I make it one. You make your,” Steve gestures out at his hands, “thing a weapon, too.”

Spider-Man just nods at that in an agreeable way. Not disagreeable anyway. He doesn’t argue the point.

“So how does this work? Like do we just go at each other? Do I try and take you out? Do we have to, like, tap out?”

Jesus. “You’ve not done this before?” Steve doesn’t even need the shake of the kids head to know that he hasn’t. “Alright, Queens. Listen up.”

Teaching has always come easy to Steve. He likes to watch people learn new things about themselves, likes to watch people prove that they can do things they hadn’t thought possible. Teaching the kid is easy. He listens, he wants desperately to learn and be useful here, Steve can tell. It reminds him of himself a little. What he was like before he got the serum, back when he was just scrappy Steve Rogers. Always looking for a fight. He wanted to prove he was useful too. The difference is the kid is strong. Very, very strong. He lacks skill and an understanding of his own abilities but that’ll come. It’s not like fighting him in the airport had been. He’s at a complete disadvantage without his spider web hitting out at things for him. He’s quick though, fast in movement as well as in his mind. He listens and watches, takes in the things that Steve doesn’t say but shows just as easy as they things he tells him straight out. They spar for hours, the others starting and stopping around them, moving about in the space while Steve and the kid stay localised. They don’t need much room to do what it is they are doing. Punching, kicking. Moving their feet to try and keep standing. That’s what this had all been about - Rhodes pairing them up. He can teach the kid without the risk of the boys strength getting in between them.

“Calling it,” Rhodes shouts out, hours later. He’s breathless, and far enough off from Steve that he maybe wouldn’t have heard it without the words being shouted.

The kid stops instantly, backing off and looking over to where Rhodes is standing with Sam and Vision. ‘That was great,” he states as he turns back to Steve. He’s a little breathless, too.

Steve just nods. It had been good. Despite the cloud of anger still hanging over him, he had managed to let go of his tight control. He’d wanted to let his fists fly and his body work hard. Instead, he’d let his body and his mind work. It had the same effect.

“I’m making lunch,” Wanda announces loud enough for them all to hear. She’s lounging in the grass, Nat, Clint and Scott beside her. She’s smiling, open and friendly, making it clear that everyone is invited.

“We’ll help,” Natasha offers for herself and Clint, standing herself and then pulling him up with her. “Scott?”

“Captain Rogers?” Spider-Man asks, quiet and unsure like he hasn’t been since they started fighting. It draws Steve’s attention to him. “I’m sorry about last night. About, the, um -”

“Call me Steve. I said that before,” Steve cuts in. He doesn’t even know what he’s apologising for, Steve’s sure. “There isn’t any need to apologise. For anything.”

“My name’s Peter. Peter Parker,” the kid, Peter, tells him. Steve isn’t sure why he squares his shoulder before he says it or why he flicks a look back to see who’s around.

“Nice to meet you, Peter.” Steve isn’t sure what else he’s meant to say to that.

When the kid doesn’t reply, just let’s those shoulders slump Steve takes a step closer to him. He’s missing something here. That wasn’t the simple introduce that it initially appears.  The kid hasn’t taken the mask off around the others. He’d taken it off the night before when it had just been the two of them but all day, even when he had been eating breakfast the mask was only lifted enough to uncover his mouth.

“I’m not meant to say that,” he, Peter, admits to the ground. “I’m meant to be keeping that between me, Mr Stark and the people that already know. The Accords, um, you’ve read them? Yeah, course you have, well I’m a minor so I’m covered under the Guardian Clause or whatever and Mr Stark is my guardian. Vision, too, he signed for me first but Mr Stark wanted it to be like iron clad so he signed when he found out about that.”

Steve has read the Accords, many many times now. He wanted to be sure before he signed. The Guardian Clause had been added not long after Germany, when reports of Spider-Man and an aeroplane of Stark Tech had crashed into the world stage. A minor would be anonymous, protected and vouched for by a guardian who had signed the Accords. It had been an obvious ploy by Tony to protect the kid, all of them had seen it. They’d spoken about it in fact, in the Quinjet. Clint had been interested in the Spider-Man since Germany and so they knew a lot more about his activities than the general public. The fact that Vision signed for him first is news.  

“I won’t say anything,” Steve assures him with a clap to his shoulder. “You don’t need to tell anyone else and I won’t tell anyone. Not even Tony, if you don’t want him to know I know.”

Peter laughs then and turns to focus those weird eyes onto the backs of everyone else walking toward the compound. “Karen or Friday’ll probably tell him.”

Steve has no idea who Karen is but Peter doesn’t seem upset or worried about it so Steve decides not to be either. There’s something else bugging him then. If he’s not worried about having shown Steve his face or telling him his name then it’s something else.

They speak about you on the radio and Peter has shown me the comics they made about you. Peter explained what happened to me, or at least the parts which he and the rest of the world seem to know about.

Peter. Steve gasps in a breath and lets his hand curl into the boys shoulder, lets his fingers grasp onto the fabric that’s soft and slick under his fingers.

“I’m sorry for lying,” Peter tells him, seeming to know what Steve is thinking. Catching on to the fact that Steve has caught on. That he understands now. “Mr Stark didn’t give me the letter but Mrs- um, ‘Becca knows no one is supposed to know who I am. She wanted me to bring the note to you, though, so it seemed best to say it came from Mr Stark. So, she said to tell you it came from him. That way you wouldn’t ask anything else.”

It hadn’t been a lie to him. Not really. “Thanks,” Steve stops and lets his hand drops, takes a step back and clears his throat. That’s the best thing he’s heard all day. “Thanks for telling me, Peter. I appreciate that.”

“No bother, I felt wrong doing it. It seemed to be, I don’t know, mean or cruel or something. I don’t want to do that,” he states, taking a step back too, eyes back on Steve.

Steve’s burning to ask how she is. How she looks. Anything. He wants to beg this kid for any information he has but he won’t. This is a kid and he has more than enough to be getting on with without adding Steve and his demanding attitude. He told him, which is more than Steve had earlier in the day. Instead he walks, heads back to the compound and the lunch Wanda and the rest are cooking up in there, the kid walking at his side.

“I can take one back,” Peter tells him, quiet now that they are closer to the compound and the ears that are inside it. No one is about but he still offers it to Steve quietly, like a secret between the two of them. “When I go home on Sunday, I mean.”

Steve nods, sharp and quick. Yes, please. Yes. He doesn’t trust himself to say the words so he hopes the nod is enough. Hopes the kid gets that he’s more grateful than he can deal with.


	7. Chapter Seven

When he comes back on Sunday Peter brings with him stories, a certain new swagger that Bucky hasn’t seen on him before and another letter. It’s late afternoon, in that time that Bucky doesn’t remember there ever being back before, when there isn’t anything to do but sit around and wait for the night to come. Tony tells her Sunday is a fun day, made for doing nothing but the things you like to waste your time on. She thinks Sundays are awful and so are his rhymes. Too long has passed and still she feels the guilt of not going to Church, even after so many  _ many  _ years of not going. So when Peter appears, Mr Hogan having dropped him off at the Tower at his request, it’s a welcome focus for her wandering thoughts. Nothing had been holding her attention all day and this, the new swagger more than the stories he is telling, does. 

He’s gained a certain kind of confidence that makes her think of Bobbie and the way he’d been so puffed up and proud in his uniform before he shipped out. He’d joined the Airborne and had felt like a king ‘cause of it. All the boys were like that but Peter always makes her think of her brother. They’ve both got that same innocence. Well, she reminds herself. Robert had it. He’s dead now. Even thinking it stings but it’s an old wound, one that Bucky has found her way around.

The stories that she’s only half listening to - Tony is the main audience, she understands that - make it clear what it is that’s caused it. Peter feels like an Avenger now. It’s all  _ Agent Barton said  _ and _ Sergeant Wilson did  _ and  _ Vision showed me this.  _ None of it is about the training, Bucky notices. It’s all about the meal times and the conversations he’d had. Spider-Man was already an Avenger but now Peter is too. He’d been accepted by Tony and the rest but they aren’t the right crowd, or that’s the impression Bucky has at least. Pete wants to be in with the  _ cool kids. _

“I’m glad you had fun, kid,” Tony smiles at him as he puts his cup down on the coffee table and leans further back into the plush sofa. He’d come straight up from his workshop when Friday had announced Peter was on his way in and he looks tired and comfortable in jeans and grease.

“I really did, Mr Stark. Like, they’re,” Peter pauses and Bucky turns spins her stool lazily with her foot again, gets so she can look at him where he’s lounging on the floor across from Tony and with his back to the windows Bucky hates. He sounds so happy she can stomach it.

“They’re?” Bucky prompts gently, smiling at Peter when he looks at her.

“ _ Great.  _ Just they know so much,” he tells them, shifting his gave between the two of them, her and Tony. “I can learn a lot.”

Bucky nods, he can, and not just the kind of things that Spider-Man needs to know. “Don’t go forgetting you already know things. Things they could stand to learn,” Bucky advises, spinning in a lazy half circle. She doesn’t want to turn away from Peter, give him the idea that she isn’t giving it all her attention, but it’s a lot to stare straight at the blinding lights that fill the sky behind his head. _Don’t go changing to fit._ Peter won’t hear that but Tony will.

“Yeah, I know. I just think they can make,” Peter pauses and Bucky can’t see what he’s doing but she bets he’s looking down, not at either of them.

“Kid,” Tony calls out and Bucky can see him and the way his arms drop from the back of the sofa and he leans forward, braces his arms on his knees. “I get it, boy, do I get it. They can help train you, make you a different kind of Spider-Man. There isn’t any shame in that. Don’t go holding back anything on our account,” he orders with a head tilt at Bucky. “We want you to learn.”

_ We want you to fit in where we don’t. _

An uncomfortable silence falls then. Without any of them meaning for it to happen they’ve ended up in the middle of the no mans land Bucky and Tony constantly skirt around. Even when they are speaking about the Avengers - Steve and his team - they don’t really speak about them. They talk about the team, about equipment, about missions, not about people. Not about qualities and strengths and the ways in which they can use them to help the boy. Tony can’t handle being thrust into this semi-parental role for any length of time and Bucky, well, she can’t even look out the window. Peter deserves better, she thinks. They’ve throughly ruined his mood and she wants to see that swagger again. He’d earned that confidence.  

Pushing with her foot again Bucky spins slow until she’s facing them. It’s only been seconds, probably not even a minute yet but it’s such a long silence given the way Peter hadn’t been able to hold his mouth closed before.

Rubbing her palm against her pants Bucky clears her throat and looks straight at Peter, focuses on his mess of hair rather than his eyes. “You can learn from them, Peter. It’s a good thing. I don’t know the rest but Steve could teach you to fight. He’s always been good at showing people how to throw a punch. He taught me,” she admits and actually has to fight a smirk. Her voice didn’t shake at all.

Out of the corner of her eye she watches as Tony goes still, still leaning forward but she can see the sudden strain of his muscles as he listens to her. Takes it in. Her focus is on Peter though and the boy just opens up like a flower, lifts his head and gives her a glowing smile.

“He did. Capt- _ Steve,  _ he was the one Colonel Rhodes paired me with, on Saturday. For fighting,” he tells them, tells  _ Bucky.  _ This is for her. She’s given him permission by saying the name they all avoid first. She’s opened the door. “He said I’m maybe stronger than he is and that if I work hard, learn and focus on my hand to hand stuff, I can probably take him down.”

Bucky nods, a genuine smile on her face for his enthusiasm if not the words. They don’t really matter, Bucky supposes, it’s the fact that she’s letting him say them that matters. That she’s willing to listen to them. “I would bet on you any day.”

“Pfft, thanks ‘Becca but maybe hold off, yeah? Gimme like ten years. Twenty tops. I saw Agent Romanov doing some stuff - Vision said it was like aikido, kind of but only a bit- and that’s just,” he sighs, looking away from Bucky and to Tony, a searching look on his face.

“Yeah,” Tony laughs, small but there. “It’s something, what Natasha can do. There ain’t a name for it other than scary. Little of this, little of that. DId you know she can crush a man with her thighs? You’re bendy, who knows what you can achieve?”

“Jesus, Tony,” Bucky laughs. She can’t help it, Peter looks just horrified.

“What? What?” he asks in reply, turning round to face her and shooting her that smile that he thinks makes him look charming. “Anyway,” he adds, turning back to Peter, “the kid’s gotta head. I don’t want an angry Aunt May on my case. Promised you’d be back for dinner Sunday. So go. Get.”

Peter doesn’t grumble or moan, doesn’t try to stay any longer. He would have a few months ago but now, now he’s comfortable in the fact that he’ll be allowed back whenever he wants. They’ve made a place for all three of them here Bucky thinks. It’s not just her and Tony, as much as it feels like it sometimes. She’s caught up in the happy little glow of that inside her and so she doesn’t realise Peter is walking over to her until he’s already in front of her. She had still been spinning a little, just a small right left motion from the flexing of her tops, and she stops it abruptly when she feels and sees him settle in front of her. He’s got his backpack on and something in his hand. Bucky knows without looking down what it is and so she just holds out her right hand and lets him place it there.

“Thank you, Peter. You didn’t need to bring me one back.” Again, Bucky’s struck that she gets to have this. Gets to have Steve’s words, his time, his attention.

Leaning back and bobbing his head in a nod Peter looks away, back towards Tony. “He, um, seemed pretty set on writing you back. I can do this for you,” he tells her, so so earnest. “Anytime.”

Bucky just nods her reply to that. It’s not a yes, not a no but then Peter doesn’t really need one. He doesn’t say anything else before he leaves and she doesn’t look up to watch him go.

“Dinner, Bucky.” Tony. A reminder. Don’t get lost, that’s what he’s really saying to her and Bucky lets her head nod a firm yes to that. To both. “Dinner,” she mumbles back with it and stands up.

He doesn’t say anything else as she makes her way past him and down the corridor to her bedroom. It’s colder inside than it is in the other room. She’d had Friday turn off the heat earlier in the day when she’d been reading. It had been too comfortable and Bucky hadn’t wanted to let herself fall into sleep. She by passes the bed - a bright white duvet with crisp hospital corners that Tony had teased her about for days when he saw them - and heads straight for the straight back chair Tony had dumped in the room a month after she arrived. It’s a blue so deep it almost looks black and the back is just a touch too straight for it to really be comfortable. She doesn’t sink into it like all the other chairs Tony has. Bucky would love it for that alone. Only when she sits down does she let herself look at what she’s holding. Just like last time her breath comes short and quick when she sees the writing.

_Bucky._ A full stop this time and her name is smaller, takes up less space. It looks more serious, somehow. The envelope is the same and it gets the same treatment. She keeps in whole, keeps it nice. Her fingers are soft and as gentle as she’s managed to teach them to be as she pulls out the pages and opens them up.

_ Bucky,  _ _ I’ll always stop everything for you. You are my responsibility. You are the only thing that I’m choosing. Everything else has to come second, third, tenth, to that. So, I’ll write back whenever you write me. I’ll come if you call for me. I’ll do anything that you need me to do. I need you to understand that. Please. You’re my wife, Bucky. That’s bigger than everything else to me. Bigger than aliens, bigger than the Avengers. I understand you don’t want to talk on somethings and I don’t want to push you on that. I won’t push that. But you said my letter was good, that it was good that I was being honest with you. So, I’ll keep doing that. If you don’t want me to, say, and I’ll stop. It feels right, though, to write these things to you. _

_ I said you were my wife today, to Rhodes. He already knew - I didn’t realise that at the time but he didn’t react and he knows you and Tony so it makes sense for him to know - but it was the first time I had ever told anyone. We were fighting - arguing, really - and I said it. Later, Clint told me that he had heard from where he was outside the door. He asked me about it, asked me why I had kept it from them. I didn’t know what to say at first but once I thought about it I was just sorry I had. We had to hide it before but I won’t now. I’m your husband, Bucky. That’s all I wanna be. I want everyone to know it. To know I’m the one you chose, that I chose you too. So I told him about it. Told him about us and Howard and Peggy in city. You wore your best dress, do you remember? The blue one that our mothers got you for Christmas. I loved that dress. It used to have me staring at your legs all the damn time. It just, god Buck. I was in my uniform and I remember how puffed out I was in it. Thought it made me look like a man that was worth you. Like anyone could be worthy of you, Buck. I don’t remember the name of the preacher Peggy got us, don’t remember how she managed to convince Howard to come and stand for us. All I really remember is the way your hand didn’t even shake a little when I held it to put my Ma’s ring on you. The way you didn’t cry but your eyes were all wet with it anyway. The way you sounded when you said your vows. I didn’t tell Clint any of that. Those things are just for me and you. _

_ I did know about Howard. I asked him. It was just before I came to see you, after Dernier died. I think it had suddenly hit me that I might not make it back even with all the serum had given me. I wanted to make sure that if I didn’t you’d still be able to live a life. I was worried that no one would let you be if they knew what we were to each other. Even then people were trying to turn me into something I didn’t want. Howard was keeping our secrets but he wasn’t ever meant to erase you, Buck. I never wanted that for you or your Momma. I didn’t want it for any of us.  _ _ You seem so sad, Bucky. I hate it. I hate that all I have are this pen and paper to try and help you. I can’t make it better - nothing can make it better, I understand that - but I can listen and I can tell you what it’s like for me. It’s not the same, I know that. I hate that you’re sad but please, Bucky, please don’t hide it. Don’t feel bad about showing me what you think. I want it all. Every single last bit of what you think, I want it all. _

_ No one can understand. Movies, books, like you say it isn’t real. It’s a story. The things that the people who lived through it wanted to share. It’s the worst and the best of what happened. There’s no middle, nothing of what it was like to live that way every day. But, Bucky, that’s good. That’s right. That was our time, our lives, not theirs. It doesn’t belong to these new people or this new time. We don’t have to share it. _

_ I’ve felt so alone, so stuck here for the longest time, but now I think on it all differently. We’re not lucky, not gonna go that far, but we did live in a great time Bucky. We got to see people like your Pop and my Ma, we got to live right alongside those people. We got to see them fight and struggle and still, still, carry on. Get up every morning, put on your best and keep moving forward. Make a mistake but still keep going forward, trying to do better. None of them got enough time but they lived in the time they had. Every single moment was lived in. I don’t know anyone like that now. That’s not much comfort, no solace, but it’s all I can give you. I’ve been out of the ice for years and that’s all I’ve got. I just know I want to live that way again. I want to live in every single moment I have left and I want them all to be with you. _

_ And the War. Yes, it was hell. It was like nothing I’d ever thought people could be. So cruel and careless with what god gave. It made me think on him alot, the War. I don’t believe no more, not in god, but I do believe in people. For as many people doing the killing there were people like you. People who were saving lives. Doing everything they could to help other people. In France there were so many people risking so much just to help their neighbour. You can’t just see the bad, Buck. It’ll turn something in you cold if you do and I don’t want that for you. Never. People, wherever, whenever, come in all kinds. Good and bad. Focus on the good, Buck. That’s it. Just look for any little bit of good. _

_ Do you speak to someone? Anyone? You said you don’t talk about life before but do you speak about anything? What you think and feel? What’s going on inside? Tony would listen, I know he would. Or he would find you someone to listen - a professional. I got one after I came outta the ice. A woman who sat and had me talk and talk at her until I spilled everything out. I don’t know if it helped but it sure didn’t do any harm. _

_ I couldn’t believe it, no, when those aliens came spilling out of the whole in the sky. After, once the clean up was days in and we’d all settled down into the reality of it, Tony and Bruce tried to explain some of it to me. Thor, too. It went over my head - Wormholes, space ships - I couldn’t think about it, really. My mind is like how you describe yours. We didn’t talk about it then and it was amazing to see something that I haven’t ever been able to really explain about myself sitting on the page from you. Space is like that to me, too big and open, my mind can’t grasp hold of it. Too many possibilities, too little intel. I keep things - closed in you said - that’s what I do. Focus. Keep it sharp. Otherwise I can’t say where my thoughts will go, what things my mind will start thinking on. If I tire myself out, use and use and use my body until it’s screaming for sleep, I can let my mind go. Does that work for you? It helps. It lets me feel quiet once in awhile. _

_ I’ll try with Tony. I’m already trying but it’s not, I just don’t fit with him Buck. I hurt him alot. He deserves to be angry and hurt and to never have to speak to me again. I know he won’t do that though, he puts people, the Avengers before himself. So i’ll try. I don’t know how to fix it even a little but I’ll try.  _

_ I don’t like to think about Shield. It makes me feel the biggest fool. I believed they were good and I was wrong about that. Some of them - Clint, Natasha, lots of others - are great but it doesn’t make up for what it was all hiding. When I think on that file now it makes me hate myself. I read it all. Tony gave me that song, too. Billy Joel. I hated it. I thought he was making fun of me with it but I like the way you take it. I’m glad you read, I remember how you used to light up when we’d manage to scrounge up a good book. Or one of those magazines. Do you remember when we all read The Hobbit? You and me and James taking turns to read it out loud, even your Momma sitting listening it. It was like magic. _

_ Thank you for thinking of getting Peter to bring me the letter. He said it’s okay to tell you he told me his name - he seems sure that Tony knows or will know soon? I won’t say anything. He’s a good kid. He likes you, I can tell. I was harsh on him when Rhodes paired us to fight, thought I’d hurt him or have to hold myself back. I didn’t want to do that, like I said sometimes if I push my body far enough, my mind goes quiet. But he’s strong and quick. Quick to learn and to move. I’m sure you care about him now that I’ve spoken to him more and had time to think on it. So I’m going to push to train him more, show him what I know. It feels like doing something for you. _

_ You’ve always been my girl. That’s good to hear, Buck. Made me light up inside. My Bucky. Like I’m yours. I was an international fugitive so maybe moll ain’t right but it ain’t wrong either. I’ll order some ribbon today - and maybe you can recommend something for me to read? Something that you’ve read and loved. _

_ I love you Rebecca, until the end of the line. We aren’t there yet. Not even close. _

_ Steve _

Bucky sits in silence for a long time after she finishes reading the letter. Only once this time, the single run through more than enough. Things stick out and she wants to work through them before anything else catches her eye. There is a strange thing uncurling inside her, something she hasn’t felt in so long it’s hard for her to even identify what it is, and it warms her up, this feeling of connection. He is like her. He thinks like her. His mind has changed like hers. Or well, to be fair, hers has changed to be like his. Bucky has felt so alone in her changes for so long it’s so nice and settling to hear him speak on his own changes. Hear him say he understands what she had been trying to explain. Her change hasn’t left her with a body lined in muscle or ten inches taller. Her body is different but only in subtle ways. She’d thought maybe it would be like that with her mind. Different even from Stevie. It’s nice to know she was wrong on that. 

And their wedding. Bucky remembers it all. She lets the memories of it wash over her - so much closer for her than for Steve. So little time has actually  _ passed  _ for Bucky. Two years, maybe two and a half. Time is hard for her to follow. She remembers her dress, remembers his uniform and how it had made her so proud and afraid all at once. Remembers how he had stood taller than she’d even seen him stand before, spin stiff and straight with some sort of pride Bucky hadn’t ever managed to give him, when he’d slipped the ring onto her finger. Most of all Bucky remembers how the kiss he gave her had felt like hello and goodbye and I love you all wrapped in one.

She stays sitting in her chair thinking on that, thinking on the past and how Steve’s lips used to feel on her, the feel of his skin under her fingers, all of it. Stays sitting there until Friday breaks the silence.

“Boss said you have to go to the workshop,” Friday orders, voice loud, sharp and filling out the room. “Now, ‘Becca.”

“Friday?” Bucky asks, already unfolding her legs and standing up. She’s not stiff despite the contorted position she’s held herself in for what feels like hours and no time at all. “What’s happening?”

“Go,” she’s told in reply and Bucky knows what this means. Knows what is happening. Friday is never sharp with her that way. She rushes but doesn’t run - she won’t let herself be that afraid, she won’t - out into the hallway.

This path is one of the first things Tony had shown her when she came to stay here. Out into the corridor that houses her room. Hers is on the right, then Peters on the left, Jim’s on the right, one that always sits empty on the right again and then Tony’s at the end. It’s the biggest but opposite it, the door down from the empty room, there is another door. It looks the same as all the rest but it isn’t. It’s open when she reaches it and Bucky steps into the elevator. It’s moving down before the doors even shut.  _ Just get in and Friday will handle the rest.  _ Tony had told her that and Friday does. Bucky stands panting and afraid, curious and worried all at once. The doors open out into Tony’s workshop, someplace Bucky avoids if she can help it. It’s too loud and bright. Too modern. The lights are low and Tony isn’t here, no one is. Bucky had been hoping he would be. Hoping it was a drill, some sort of test to make sure she would comply. But no. No one is here.

“Friday?” Bucky calls out, stepping out of the elevator and into the wide open space. The only light is coming from the displays Tony has left open, Bucky can see that now. Everything is cast in an eerie blue glow. “Where is Tony?”

A beat. Two. Friday asking permission. Friday never has to ask permission to tell her anything. Bucky only recognises it from seeing it happen to Peter.

“Boss is on the roof,” Friday informs her finally, a second too late. “In the suit. Seven minutes ago twenty two unknown agents entered the Tower after using wingsuits to drop from an unidentified aircraft.”

Bucky stills. She wasn’t moving before but she knows that now she is still in an unnatural way. Tight and closed off. A statue that used to be a person. She can’t still her mind so she  _ will  _ still her body. Control, she needs it.  _ On the roof. On the roof. On the roof.  _ Friday’s words repeat like a mantra in her mind. On the roof. So close.

  
  
  



End file.
